Thank you all for your ongoing support. I have definitely gotten into the pattern of freezing up, not spending anything and then splurging. That was actually a long time ago for me, haven't done that in a while.

So my husband just did the shopping for groceries. I made two cakes. My son had two bites but everyone else enjoyed them and had a good time overall. The party was a success. I feel so much more relieved and rational about spending and life.

As far as budgeting for parties and such, I used to always do that as well. You can't always plan for a wedding, so that was my way of planning. We recently went to one income and that is why things feel so scary right now. We will have two cars paid off in less than a year, which will allow for a lot more flexibility. As someone said in their comments, this is a marathon...not a sprint. I want the cc debt to be a sprint and the saving to be the marathon. Once again, it all must be kept in perspective.

Well, we planned a party for my son's first birthday. Unfortunatly, I am struggling to relax and enjoy it. I have been avoiding going to the store, because I don't want to spend any money. I need things to bake his cake, but I can't seem to bring myself to go. My dh went instead. He stuck to the list!!

I feel like it will be at least 10 years before we get out of cc debt. I have been thinking that we should combine all of the cc's on one 0% interest and make one payment instead of trying to remember to make 4. Any ideas?

What great ideas! I often go without spending at all for awhile and that is when i feel that I deserve a splurge. Sometimes it is when i am down, but not too often lately. I really like the idea of picking one or two luxuries and doing them.

On another note, I finally found out how much debt we actually have, it is much worse than I thought...much, much worse. I guess my spouse was using his credit cards all along. I have such mixed feelings about all of this. I have intentionally been spending less and he seems to keep spending more. I asked him to remove the cc's from his wallet. I had no idea. I guess it is some of my own responsibility for not participating more in the financial world. I am now!

I knew that we were in debt. We keep trying to whittle the debt down, some of our friends are much more wealthy than we are, they don't flaunt it at all, it is pressure that I seem to put on myself. We seem to do well at sticking to our budget for a few weeks, sometimes a few months, then we blow it! It seems that all of the work we focused on was wasted. It is tough to change my spending mentalitiy. I don't want to give up all of my luxuries. I feel selfish!