realities

I've been struggling with the decision to take my older son out of private school and move to public school. We are in NYC, which doesn't have the best reputation, but we do live in an affluent neighborhood, so the schools are NOT terrible. I'm not thrilled with our preschool. And I hate that it is so white and the play dates we have been on have been to families with significantly more money than us.

So today, Matt Damon enrolled his toddler in the school. What a wake up call. If he is enrolling his kid, clearly this is more of an elitist school than I had thought. Clearly, given our finances and my goals of a good but diversified education, public is the way to go!

day 2

Tonight after dinner I asked the hubby to sit down and meal plan for the week; you'd thought I was trying an at home tooth extraction. Really! Just for meal planning. I'm heading out of town on Thursday for the business, and its a good thing. He thinks he can go all week without spending a dime. I applaud the effort, but one does need to eat. However he is a food SNOB, so getting him off his high horse on only ordering at the costly end or expecting four star meals when I cook, will be fun. I think a great sensitivity process is he'll be cooking for himself Thursday through next Wednesday and see the cost of his creative dinner ingredients.

Me, I'm just looking forward to a good night's sleep and no family drama by working the trade show for 12 hours a day. yeah, there is drama associated with that, but it is different when I can go back to the hotel and just unwind.

Then today a cost was thrown at me, my computer died. I'll find out the damages, cost wise, of a new hard drive tomorrow. But at least that comes out of the business.

Day 1

Sometime I'll have time to give a great back ground, but in a nut shell:

• I'm the bread winner of my family
  
• I lost my corporate job a 13 months ago
  
• I've started two new businesses in the last year, both have done well, but only one is making money
  
• My spouse has always 'worked' but not contributed to the household income.
  
• I need to control our coast and raise my income
  
• I'm doing it alone.  My spouse is supportive, but not a leader.
  
• I have two children ages 5 an under.
  
• We are accustomed to a very healthy income.
  

So parts of step 1 are: 

• we are going to monitor every penny we spend for the next month.  then analyze potential changes
  
• If we eat out, then I will eat salad.  
  
• My eldest is currently applying for public school for next fall, out of public (a savings of 30K a year).
  
• I'm redoing our tax strategy - read taking it away from my spouse and have an accountant involved which cost me about 3K in the short run, but should result in some returns and less fear IRS repercussions to anything my hubby is doing behind my back.
  
• Once taxes are all filed appropriately, I'm going to try to change the payment schedule on one of our mortgages.
  
• I'm using quick books for the first time for both my businesses, my hubbies and our personal expenses.
  
• I'm creating new plans for my businesses
• I expect nothing from my husbands, but I also shut down his office, which yes, means we are both now working from home.

Hey, its a start.