my biggest tip is ...when you go shopping, be it for cleaning supplies and household goods, groceries, stuff for kids, clothes...whatever. Leave the debit, credit cards and checkbook at home! Take out your spending limit at the ATM or just save it out of your check and only take that with you. That way you CANNOT go over your budget because you can't pay for it.
Our biggest cost is gas... we have to drive to a different city and back sevral times a day. I take my son to school (same city), come home... wake up my hubby and the baby they drop me off and come home (a city away) they drive home. He picks my son up from school, comes home, picks me up as he goes in (we work in the same place but opposite shifts.). I drive home. I have to get all the kids up and go pick him up then drive back home. This is a normal day without any trips to stores, any bills or errands to run... We spend wayyy too much on gas. We need a second car but that is not in our budget for some time. We have no one to share rides with. I hope gas stops going up soon, but i have heard it will be $5 a gallon by summer. It already takes about $82 to fill up.
