Hi,
Some very great responses already and good advice.
Also, great progress on the debt.
I'm not sure if you've taken action on the whole life, but it could make a significant difference.
$124 isn't terribly expensive for life insurance, but it depends on how much you're covered for. I know for the 2 kids, a $25,000 Term policy could cost as little as $15 a month atached to your policy. Also, you could use the cash value saved up to date in all your whole life policies to pay off debt. In the words of Michael Chilton, author of 'The Wealthy Barber' "Buy term and invest the difference." In this case, put the difference towards debt.
I don't agree on macro-managing budgets. I believe you get what you focus on, and when you focus on the small daily expenses and what you're spending daily, you lose sight of the big picture.
I would suggest a Comprehensive budget that plans on paying the minimum on all debt obligations EXCEPT ONE. When that debt is gone, you can put all the money that was going to that bill towards the next bill. It's called debt stacking, or snowballing your debt. Very effective outside of consolidating.
As for any tools you'd like for budgetting, you can find some free ones here at our blog
How To Manage Money Tips , or look at other sources online. I'd also you suggest you automate your bills - If you do online banking, you should be able to heve the bills paid automatically so you're not spending valuable time focusing on them. We've all done that here and now spend only about one hour a month budgetting (this will be a bit different for you as your DH earns income from side jobs).
Best of luck,
Guy Gagnon
Business Relations Technologist
Angulus Marketing