My wife and I discussed our household budget over the long weekend. She had been dreading the conversation and putting it off for months.

The first few conversations we had like this 7-10 years ago were tough- I had to tell her rent came before getting hair and nails done, and she was not used to that (her mom did not require her to pay rent before she moved in with me).

The last few have been real easy. She initiated this one because she wanted money for a vacation to disney world in July of 2009.

We sat down and plugged various numbers into our budget spreadsheet. I had a raise which had not been added in, and we decreased the phone bill from $100 to $55 by removing some options from the line. We need a phone line for home high speed internet- we have a satellite dish so roadrunner/dsl is not an option.

End result was we save 20% of gross pay and pay our bills. And have $5000/year left over after all spending is accounted for.

WOW- my last raise was only 3k and we increased Roths once the raise hit the bank account.

Needless to say, looks like our kids can meet Winnie the Pooh and Tigger.