Budget Blues

Last night when I was paying bills and playing around with Microsoft Money, because I'm weird and I find it amusing to analyze my budget at least once a week, I made a horrible discovery--we went over our budget on eating out this month. Egads. Now anyone who knows me knows how much I dislike spending money. Case in point, I still own--and have been known to wear--some of the same clothes I had in high school. And one of my favorite shows is Til Debt Do Us Part. Seriously.

But I digress. So when I saw our budget fail, I immediately made a decision that I was going to conduct an experiment. I've read about this type of experiment in various blogs, but never felt brave enough to try it. The challenge: No eating out for 30 straight days. The idea intrigues me, but at the same time scares the bejesus out of me because it means I am sentencing myself to 30 days of planning, shopping for and preparing meals. I can do this, I told myself.

In an attempt to take some of the heat off myself, I went to the troops for meal ideas. "What are some dinners you'd like to have?" I asked the kids. "We'll go week by week."

"Tacos" said Alex. O.K., that's doable. Now we're getting somewhere.

"Hot dogs and Macaroni and Cheese" replied Maddie. Ew, and not very healthy, but we'll go with it for now.

"Pink pancakes" insisted Riley. Mental note: Never try to be a nice, crafty, cool mom again and color the kids pancakes. They will then forever more demand it and fight over who's turn it is to pick the color.

"I don't care" said Mark. Seriously? Thanks a lot.

O.K., let's move on to week two.

"Tacos"
"Orange pancakes. It's my turn to pick the color."
"Hot dogs"
"I don't care"

Grrrrrr. Let's try this again, shall we?

"Tacos. That's my favorite. Wait, is it my turn to pick for pancakes? Because if it is I want blue pancakes."
"The stuff with guts." That would be manicotti, Maddie, and it's cheese, not guts.
"Can we have hot dogs?"
"Whatever"

"Forget it," I snapped. "Get in the car. We're going out to eat."

Next month I'm raising the dining budget.