No idea how people do it

The zero dollar budget.

Taking G-man's salary from both jobs plus mine....we are still over $500 in the hole each month. I am trimming here and there, and working the numbers hard.

A few things have come to light in this process:

1) Why on Earth is our Electric bill so high?? $170 a month on budget plan. We don't have electric heat! We do have window a/c, but we try not to use it. Can a tv really generate THAT much electricity? That is probably the only thing that we really use. ACTION PLAN: Call electric company and find out what is average use. Consider paying $75 for them to come out and do an audit of the house.

2) Cell phone....we will shopping for a new plan soon. Our contract is up in March. Current bill is $90 a month. Would like it closer to $70. Yes, I love to talk to my friends while I drive, but is it really worth it??? NO!!! ACTION PLAN: Will be dropping the "favs" part. Probably will drop the text plan too....yeah, it is fun, but not really NEEDED.

3) As much as I didn't like the Financial Advisor, he was correct on one part....without some type of consolidation of our credit cards, we can't do this. We need to speed up payment of G-man's thrift loan (which I have not counted as part of our snowball) so we can re-do the loan and pay back the high interest stuff. ACTION PLAN: Confirm total balance. Use insurance check to payback bulk amount. Figure out per paycheck amount to pay off loan in 10 months vs 6 months, so we can consolidate.

More to come.....thoughts on the potential move.