Budget Smudget

This is my second month trying to stick to my budget and it's not working so well either. I am already over on some categories and it's only the middle of the month. At this rate I don't really know how we are going to afford paying the extra amount for Ai-Vy's babysitting. I know why we are going over and I know WHAT we need to cut back. The problem is I don't see HOW!


The first category we need to cut back is grocery. I see why we had a problem sticking to that last weekend when we went to the Asian supermarket and I bought all these expensive exotic fruits. That's what I crave..what can I do??!! :P Everyone keep telling me that I need to feed my craving or my daughter is going to come out drooling so I am just following orders. Plus you can't control a pregnant woman's cravings right? In addition to my expensive fruits, the Asian supermarket never has a sale like the American ones. I can't clip coupons or wait for something to be on sale to buy it. I need all these stuff at the store and it's the same price regardless if I buy it or not. I have to send Hieu to the grocery store sometimes and he's not the most consciencious shopper. He'll stray off the list and get things on impulse that way. He has wasted a lot of food that way and I've been getting him on that but it doesn't seem to help.


The second category we need to majorly cut back is dining out. I know by cooking more I can bring this down. However even with me preparing everything to cook over the weekend, some days I come home too tired to even think about cooking. Since I am the only person who will cook in the house, if I am not doing it then we are having take-outs. Take-outs is not just for Hieu and I, we have to pay for dinner including my little sister and her boyfriend. Either her boyfriend or Hieu's little brother will join us for dinner so we always have to pay for 4 meals when ordering out. Everyone knows four adult meals on a semi-regular basis can get pricey. I can get Hieu to cook sometimes but he is limited to spaghetti and crawfish boil. You can only eat so much of that right? He's not willing to try new recipes nor want to cook. He said that's not his strong point and doesn't want to try. I do make him help out preparing stuff for me to cook while I put Ky-An to sleep though. Sometimes he does a good job helping, most of the time not.

Whenever we go out to eat with my family or his family, we always end up paying too. There's not post in the Finance Board about this and I don't think they'll understand why we feel obligated to pay anyway. If we take my mom or dad out to eat for a special occasion, the whole family of course is invited (my sisters and their boyfriends). We are the most financially stable couple so the bill fell on our responsibility. My oldest sister is in Dallas and whenever she comes down then she and I will take turn or split the bill. My second oldest sister is a single mom so we rarely let her pay for stuff. The same with my little sister, she is still in school so we don't let her pay for anything either. We don't mind paying for the family but it's a burden on us sometimes, especially when we are trying to be on the budget. For these occassions, we have to shell out at least $50 for a gift and then several hundreds for dinner for everyone. I feel obligated to take them out to eat when it's their birthday, etc or we will never see each other.

I guess this is more of a vent post because I really don't know what we can do to stick to our budget. It stresses me out sometimes and I just want to put more toward savings. I guess we'll just have to rely on extra money like we usually do to fund our savings. At this rate I don't even know if we can afford to put in the extra money for Ai-Vy's education fund! I have faith it will all work out though..it always does.