Alright, so I've been away for over a year. Last time I posted I was having trouble creating a budget that worked for me so I gave up and just kept track of spending and balances using Quicken. Fast forward a year later and I am still plugging away at Quicken but now things have changed.

A little background information. I am married and have two school aged kids in private school My son is two years away from private high school and tuition is not cheap. I have worked part time since my son was in 2nd grade and my daughter in preschool. It was always my plan to work full time when my son was in 7th grade (starting in a few weeks) to prepare for high school tuition.

Well I have actually been looking for a job for about two years but really seriously for the past year. Had a couple of possibilities recently but ultimately they went with someone else, and needless to say, I am getting discouraged and a bit of a complex that maybe something is wrong with ME.

Well today I ran the numbers on estimated tuition for high school and middle school for the fall of 2010 when my son starts high school and my daughter will be in 5th grade. As it turns out, I may not need to work full time. YIPPEE! If we can get our car paid off one year early (in 2010) we can apply what we were paying towards the car loan to tuition and we will only need to come up with an additional ~$200. That is totally doable. We need to cut back on other expenses in order for this to work and I already have a plan for that:

I recently switched auto insurance carriers and that saved me $484/year!

Going to switch internet and cable providers to take advantage of reduced monthly expenses.

Determine how much extra to pay towards car payment to get it paid of by June 2010.

Find other ways to reduce expenses.

Develop a budget and adhere to it.

Still look for another job (been wanting one for a long time) but still a part time one and one that pays more than what I am earning now (not going to be easy).

I think part of my problem in the past with budgeting was that even though I wanted to have a budget I didn't really need one per se. We didn't/don't have CC debt and money wasn't an issue. We had enough to cover expenses and saved a little (but not enough). Now that I have a clear goal in the near future, I think sticking to the budget will be easier.

I need to not make it such a complicated thing and it definitely has to be in Quicken. I don't want to have to make double entries.

More to come...