Day 2: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

If I can be honest, our biggest issue with sticking to a budget and paying these credit cards off is my husband. I love him dearly, however he does not understand the concept of a budget, does not understand that broke means broke, and I'm convinced he thinks I'm deliberately hiding money from him.

Today, for example, we had appointments with the optomotrist (you'll see why this is relevant later). At 8:00 this morning, we all piled in the car and headed to the office. After both of us had gone through the rigors of an eye exam and we had all piled back into the car, my daughter asked if we could go to breakfast. My husband looked at me and asked what I wanted to do and I told him I wanted to go out for breakfast, but it wasn't financially responsible, so we could go home and I would cook breakfast.

After breakfast, I put the kids down for a nap and laid down for one myself. When we woke up, my husband announced that he needed to get out of the house and wanted to go to the store to buy a Father's Day gift. We picked up my mother in law and headed to Kohl's.

I bypassed the shoes that I was looking at for my daughter, passed on buying new bath towels that my husband suggested, and walked out with only a Father's Day card for my dad.

We went into Target, so we could look for Father's Day cards for my husband and father-in-law, and that's where things started to decline. I picked up what I needed, my husband picked up what he needed, and then he picked up a pack of water guns for the kids. I picked up a clearanced wicker bench for the kids. We walked out $45 poorer.

Then we went to Borders so my mother-in-law could pick up a book for my husband. I picked up a box of books for about $9. We walked out of there $45 poorer.

Combining the $45 at Target, $45 at Borders, $20 at the optomotrist, $3 at Kohls, and $2 for a bottle of water, we spent $115...all on credit.

It's like we spend without even knowing that we're spending. My husband refuses to see the benefits of a budget, and because they've never worked for us before, he's convinced they never will. Every time I tell him there's no money, he tells me that I'll have to "move it around". We're out of money to move around. Our savings account hovers around $5 plus our mortgage payment, our checking account starts at $100 for the week and steadily declines from there.

We're in way over our heads and I can not get any support from my husband, and I just don't know that I can do it on my own.