I know this is going to sound horrible- but this is what I did when me and DH were starting out. In my bank account let's say I spent $12.58 at a store- I would round that up to $13- it is a little bit hard at first- but the change adds up (I did not do this with the bills I had to pay- it is easier to know exactly how much money you put towards each bill- and if there is any concern over billing- your info is correct). But the key is- when you go to balance the check book- make sure to round up everything that you rounded up- that way you know you balanced it correctly and you are saving money without knowing it. Also- don't let you DH know that there is a cushion otherwise the cushion is gone!

We still are paycheck to paycheck for the most part until the weather is nice and overtime is rampid- but I still try to have a "hidden" cushion just incase! Another thing that I do is have a budget on almost everything- like after bills if we have $500 for things- I will allow this much towards groceries and so on and so forth.

A lot of people do this. My mom has a line item in her checkbook where she "takes out" $100 or so and has it listed as personal savings or something. Then when that amount reaches a certain amount she transfers some over to savings.

I did your idea for a while with my dh but just got out of the habit. It does help though to give you that little extra cushion. I would round mine up from like $12.58 to $14.58 that way everything wasn't an even number.

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Proud mommy to adorable Kinsley

We have Quicken and have it set up to automatically deduct $25 a week, even though the money is still in the bank. Just like putting it in your checkbook, but it's more invisible, since the computer just does it. I sometimes forget until I balance the bank statement against Quicken and see my $25 deductions listed. I told DH once, but he doesn't remember that I do it. The only problem is, that whenever he wants to see the balance in our account, he goes online, instead of looking in Quicken. I'll have to change the password, I guess, and not tell him the new one!! :D

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www.myspace.com/vioburn

Frugal is being wise with your money and resources and cheap is forcing everyone else to.

Check out my blog, I'm starting to add more to it, as I can...www.ginnyv.com

I've taken out 10% of my grocery budget in cash and shoved it in a can inside the cupboard. Out of sight out of mind. The money I stashed ended up saving us when DS landed in the ER and needed medicine we didn't have the money for. I'm going to start doing this again. $10 or $15 doesn't seem like that much, but it adds up and it's more than the $0 I've been saving up to date..

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I am still strugling with the living paycheck to paycheck. What we are doing is setting goal and budget limitation. Every week at the grocery store I take out $40 cash as our eating out money. We have a rule that for eating out we only pay cash thus it keeps us from eating out much. Eating out has been our biggest issue In staying in budget. Everything else we just try to be frugal. We have goals everytime my guy gets a raise well we increase our retirement saving instead of our spending habits. I too try to put away $100 everymonth to build our e-fund.

I have no answers just finiacial worry. We are pay check to paycheck and sometimes we dont even have enough to make that far. I dotn see a way out of this except with time. We create no new debit and pay what we can on what we have.