Ticket Back From La-La Land...

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Since the birth of Jilly Billy I have been in a sort of la-la land of not caring about such silly things as budgets and saving money. Living in la-la land is fun, that is, until you exit la-la land and get a serious dose of reality smacking you in the face.

After the rude, yet necessary, awakening I received after updating my budget spreadsheet with various credit card balances I have decided that while my trip to la-la land afforded me less stress to deal with while caring for a new baby and two other children, my vacay is over. Goodbye throwing whatever crap I want into my shopping cart and hopping on every deal at Slickdeals and hello coupon queen who only buys what we really need. Boring, boring, boring but I suppose being a grownup can't be all fun and games.

Here is my belt tightening plan:

-My grocery and household stuff budget is going to be lowered to $75 a week (this week it's $50 due to poor financial planning on my part- good thing I'm not getting paid to handle my family's finances because I would be so fired) which means that I am going to have to *gasp* make shopping lists and stick to them. Luckily I have a $50 Whole Foods gift card my mom got me for Easter and a $20 Whole Foods gift card that I got for free from an Amex deal to supplement my meat purchases.

-I am going to hop back into the drugstore game after a six month hiatus and have a $20 CVS e-gift card that I bought for $10 to help make the transition easier. Right now I have enough toilet paper and paper towels to last at least a couple of months so I won't be needing to buy those money hogs and my dog has enough dog food to last way longer than that which is good because his food costs way more than one should spend on an animal that enjoys licking his own butt. I am also set for diapers for awhile because my mom went on a diaper deals binge before Jilly Billy was born and I am still reaping the benefits of her couponing.

-I will get back on the rebate train. I just sent out two Kelloggs rebates for $10 gas cards (thank you unhealthy obsession with Crispix cereal), a $5 Scrubbing Bubbles rebate, $2.99 Reynolds rebate and $150 in rebates from our electric company for purchasing new Energy Star appliances (because when you don't have a huge cash flow what you do is buy new appliances). I am also going to keep an eye out for any no beer purchase required rebates on Ebay.

-I am finally going to list all of my son's outgrown spring/summer clothes on Ebay (I pulled the bin out of the closet a few weeks ago and it was collecting dust). I washed all of them yesterday and hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to take pictures and then list them at night when the kids are in bed. I was going to take them to the consignment shop near my house but I think I'll do better selling on my own. Anything that is not up to par I am going to donate

-We are going to forgo takeout for awhile. I was astonished at the amount of money we were spending on takeout and coffee, though about 75% of the money was spent by my husband on coffee (he is on a budget now- will he stick to it? who knows). Good thing I hate coffee.

-I will not be buying the kids anymore clothing for the near future. I went through everything they have and they seem to be set for the summer, though they may need sandals but I'll hold out for a deal since it's not totally imperative right now (they each have new Crocs). I do have a $50 Children's Place gift card that my mom got for one of the kids for Christmas so I can use that to buy anything that comes up (I don't remember who she gave it to so it's up to my discretion who gets the bounty from it). This will be hard not buying clothes because when I find an awesome deal for cute stuff I compulsively have to buy it; I might as well block the Gap and 77 Kids from my computer to avoid temptation. My husband is also set for clothing for now and me, well I suppose I'm set too (insert sad face here).

Wasting money is fun for a bit but what's even more fun is saving it! (I figure if I keep saying this to myself that eventually I'll believe it.)