[aida2003]

Originally Posted by noppenbd

It sounds like you will be shopping more intentionally as well. Look for sale items rather than the brand you "always buy". Lose the brand loyalty. Also pay careful attention to the unit pricing which is displayed on every item in the grocery store. Oftentimes a name brand that is on sale is only slightly cheaper than normal and it would pay to stick with a store brand. Sometimes it is cheaper to buy a smaller box of an on-sale item than the bigger bulk package. I know it is embarrassing to do this, but when you are checking out, put your necessities on the belt first, and finish with your "wants". Watch the total on the register and if it goes over what you have budgeted, ask the cashier to restock the items you can't afford.

FSAs work like this: money is deducted from your paycheck pre-tax. For example, if you ask for $100 to go into the FSA, your gross pay will go down by $100. However, your tax withholdings are a percentage of your gross pay, so they will also go down a bit. The result is that putting $100 in your FSA will only reduce your take home pay by $75-80. So you are saving $20 right there. The $100 gets put into a holding account, either for medical expenses or dependent care. When you pay out for one of these things, you can fill out a reimbursement form, fax it to the FSA company, and they will cut you a check to pay back your costs. It seems complicated but you can save a lot of money on your child care. You can put up to $5000 per year in your dependent care FSA, which will reduce your take home pay by only $4000 or so but pay for $5000 in care, saving you $1000 a year. Since you are planning on childcare expenses of ~$900 a month, you should put the max in once you have stable employment.

I agree with everything Dave said. I just want to add some more.

With FSA's, you have to be careful. The IRS says "if you don't use the money in a FSA, you lose it." As an example, we were quoted last year that we'd need around $2k for our dental care. We allocated that much during the FSA sign-up back in November. Well, after the recent appointment, DH was told that his teeth are much better and that estimate went down to $1,500. Once you sign up for a medical or dependant care FSA you cannot adjust your allocated amount. So, in our case at this point we will lose $500 unless his teeth (or mine after pregnancy) will be worse or we incur other expenses (maybe I should stack up on diaper rash creams ).

How old are your kids? Maybe you could explain the oldest that daddy and mommy need to make some changes.
Yes, they'll be disappointed about soda, but will they notice the taste difference between Pepsi and store brand? I'm not an expert, since we do NOT drink soda. Also, you don't need to cut everything cold turkey, do it gradually and yes, you should learn to switch from brand loyalty to PRICE loyalty, but do not forget quality too.

I hear you about SPRINT, it's not a trustworthy co. based on our old experience with them. I got a feeling that they generated income by cheating their customers.