Hubby and I split up today - he took our 7 year old out to do a few things, and I took our 3 year old shopping with me.

My 3 year old needed sneakers, but the selection in stores is awful. I found a pair on www.6pm.com for $25 (the same shoes at Stride Rite are $45) and will be ordering those tomorrow. We went to JC Penney, and I had a coupon for $20 off a $50 purchase, and a $25 gift card. I got one sleeveless top, and 2 cardigan sweaters (which makes it cheap and easy to convert my summer work warddrobe to winter - just throw a cardigan on!) for under $15 out of pocket.

Took my munchkin out to lunch using our Kids Dine Free card, cost $10 for both of us. Then went to our local berry farm's market, and got 3 pints of blueberries, 2 pints of strawberries, and 2 cantaloupes (they were free with a $6 purchase) for a total of $8.

Last splurge was frozen yogurt at Sweet Frog, my 3 year old's favorite place on earth. You fill a cup with as much as you want, and you have a ton of toppings to choose from. I'm not crazy about frozen yogurt so I didn't get any, giving us a $2.37 bill for my little one.

Overall a wonderful day with my youngest, for a super cheap amount of money! I do still need to buy a pair or two of pants, as I've lost a good amount of weight and I'm tired of pulling my pants up all day long. That's a good problem to have though

So my have my 7 year old out of summer camp this week to spend some time with him on his birthday week (he'll be 7 Thursday). One of the things he wanted to do was go to work with me, so that was great - took him with my yesterday and saved a vacation day! Today we went to our city's botanical gardens, bowling, and for ice cream.

I was really proud of how frugally I planned this day. We did buy the season pass for the botanical gardens - $60 using my husband's old military ID, and the place is awesome! Great place for my husband to bring the kids on the weekends I work as well. Otherwise he would easily spend $60 in one single day taking them out.

We packed lunch from home and ate it on the way to the bowling alley. I signed him up for a kids bowl free program on weekdays all summer long. So it only cost us $11 for shoes and for me to bowl. Then we went to get ice cream, had a buy one get one free coupon and used a gift card for the balance.

So I got home and checked my credit card statement. $60 for the garden membership, a $55 EZ Pass charge hit today, and then we also went back to school shopping which cost $100 at Target (that's just school supplies, no clothes). So much for a cheap day...

That said, all of those things were going to happen anyway, so I guess my date day with my son still only cost $11. But I was still disappointed to see all that on my credit card. I'm so close to paying it off, this will just be more motivation!

Had to work my part time job today, and made time and a half for holiday pay, and we were busy so I stayed over a little bit. Next Friday's check will be a nice one! Hubby took the boys to a botanical garden that was open for free today (usually it's fairly expensive), and they were going to go out for lunch for the kids wanted to come home and have lunchables. So no expense there. Then we were going to go out and do something, and get dinner, but in the end decided to stay home, get our workouts in, and made microwave popcorn and let the boys stay up to watch fireworks. So all in all, the day didn't cost a thing other than gas, but I made far more than that back at my job!

I knew I wouldn't make any progress, since I had that $1100 personal property tax bill to pay, but I didn't think I'd go backwards! I owe $1700 more in my credit cards than I did last month, so I charged $600 in random other "stuff" in the last month. I know $200 of it was Fitbits for my husband and I for our birthdays, the rest was gas and groceries that were more than what I had on the debit card I've been using for it.

After my minimum payments, I have $412 a month left for gas and groceries, which is impossible to do for a family of 4. I can barely keep us under $400 for food alone, and my gas is typically just over $200 a month.

The good news is that before having my 2nd job, I was in the same boat, and I was building more and more credit card debt. At least now I am making progress (most months). All in all, I have still paid off $4300 of credit card debt since January. I just need to get back on top of it and make some more progress! I have some BIG paychecks coming up from my 2nd job, I'm working 3 out of the next 4 weekends, 4th of July for holiday pay, and a few evenings. That should really help make a dent in it.

So personal property taxes are one of those things that I always seem to be forget about until I get the bill in May - and it is a HUGE expense due June 5th. Plus this year we got a new minivan, so the taxes are even higher. So between the vehicles and our pop-up camper, I have to pay $1100 in personal property taxes. Since I would have used that money to keep paying down my Chase card, I'm just going to put the taxes on the card to get the cash back and then pay it. But I've been paying down about $1400-$1500 a month on my credit card debt, so this month I will pretty much make no progress I guess at least I won't be going backwards!

Now I have to make sure I remember this bill for the future and plan for it ahead of time (although on the bright side, it goes down year after year as the value of the vehicles decrease.)

I'll get there!

So I've taken control of both my weight and my finances... somehow, taking control of one area of your life makes you realize you can control a lot of it, and all good things spiral from there! So my co-workers at my 2nd job ordered out lunch today to celebrate the graduation of one of our students. Instead of joining them, I stuck to what I brought from home (a chicken lasagna that I had thrown together from leftovers and frozen) and saved myself both money and calories. I've lost a pound in 3 days and paid off another $1200 in debt with Friday's paycheck Can't get better motivation than that!