[terry1156]

You have taken a very important first step...writing down where all the expenses are going. That is one of the biggest hurdles and will help quite a bit simply by knowing where the money is going. It's also good that the two of you have talked about it and are on the same page.

The more detailed you can be about where the money is going, the more suggestions we can give to ways of saving money. I guess the first question is how much money is going out for your rent/mortgage. Hopefully it is not taking up a huge portion of your monthly income (this seems to be a place where many people run into problems).

The next issue is how much do you have on the credit cards and how much are you currently paying on each of them each month. Also, how is you credit rating at the moment (have you missed some payments lately, etc?) and what percentage are you paying in interest on them?

I think I read in one of your posts that you have two cars, but at the moment you are only using one? is that right? I know that using one is probably a huge hassel compared to two, but would it be possible to continue doing this for awhile? If it is, then you could sell one of the cars (hopefully that would cover the loan if you still have one on it and maybe bring in a little money. It would also reduce your car insurance and car repair bills (since there would only be one instead of 2).

The more detail you can give, the easier it will be for us to try and give some suggestions. It is amazing the creative ways that people have cut expenses from reading boards in the past and I'm sure we can come up with some ideas that you and your husband have not thought about (brainstorming with a large group always brings out more ideas than two people by themselves).