Gearing up for a new year!

Well, Christmas is over and January 1 is just over the horizon.

We had a wonderful Christmas. Visiting with family, lots of togetherness (LOTS), and great presents and food. My wonderful husband surprised me with a new camera. I've wanted one for ages, but didn't NEED one, so never justified spending the money. Well, that wonderful man got me a new one for camera. I was so surprised when I opened it and felt teary eyed that he had done that. My husband is not the most romantic man in the world, so I loved it when he does things like that.

Anyway, now Christmas is past and I've been thinking a lot about next year. I don't know about you, but we are expecting things to only get worse for the ecomony next year. Also, while we've been enjoying hubby "double-dipping", the past few months, May and decision time will be coming fast, so we need to prepare for however that will work out.

I still have my daycare baby ($100 per week) and on January 5 will start watching two little girls from 6 am until school time for another $25 per week. I'm so thankful for this $125 per week because I feel like no matter what else happens, I know that we can eat and (unless prices rise again) put gas in the car for $125 per week.

I'm also praying about adding another daycare child, but I'm hesitant because I think we will be adding another baby to our family sometime next year (or into 2010 depending). I was pretty sick with Jason's pregnancy, so I don't want to overdo it. But, we shall see.

So, with all of this in mind, I'm renewing, recommitted and refocused on doing whatever I can to spend less money in 2009. I'm not responsible for the bills, my husband does that, so I'm not responsible for deciding how every penny gets spent and things like that. What I am responsible for is making sure that the pennies that I am giving are spent wisely. This mainly means the feeding and the clothing of my family.

I've got some ideas brewing as to how I'm going to go about being a better stewart of my money, but one of the things that I've done to prepare is to revamp my blog list. I took off a few that weren't cutting it (sorry!) and added a few that I hope might be more helpful to me. A few I'm not sure about yet; I just took some others advice. We'll see.

Now I must go and look at all the leftovers in my fridge and figure out what we are going to eat next week.

Happy New Year!!!