How did this happen?

Is there any way you can do some part time jobs until you get back to normal? This will help in keeping with your daily expenses and there won't be too much stress on your mortgage payments. Hope this helps!

First thing I would do is to contact your mortgage company to make an arrangement with them. Try & sit down to see exactly what is coming in and going out....you would be suprised. Is there anything that you can cut back on? every little bit helps. I understand - it seems like the harder you try and when you think things are getting better, something comes up. Something I did was to open an ING savings account online. It connects to your regular checking account, and you can transfer $ back & forth, but you make around 5% interest on it. Not much, but better than nothing. They also have a checking with a debit card but it is a little less interest. IT is a painless way to make a few extra cents here and there as there are no fees.

Is that a bi-weekly check your husband gets, or monthly? If that is bi/semi-monthly, you could do some very careful budgeting, and watch your spending to buy only things you need. Easier said than done, I know. But I noticed myself, I would be at the store in the check-out lane and say "one little candy bar won't hurt." There goes $1.59. All these little things add up by the end of the month I would find I was spending like $60/month on candy bars and soda.

Back in 2006 I got an accounting program and anytime I spent money, I would mark it up in the program what I spent the money on. It really gave me a good picture where my money was going, and I found so many things I could "cut out" of the picture by just telling myself "I really don't need that, so I won't buy it." And then I started to see the expenses go down and down, and I was able to save a lot of money. Now I give myself an allowance - $100 to spend every month on discretionary purchases, including fast food. Once I've reached that $100 mark, I'm done for the month and will not spend on anything I don't need until the next month. I've even had friends that call me up and want to go to a bar or movie, and I have to say "sorry, I'm tapped out until next month."

Another thing might be that your husband is having too much tax taken out of his paycheck. Maybe payroll is calculating his tax liability from out-dated figures. You might want to fill out a new Form W-4 and turn it into the payroll dept.

Certain earnings may also put him into a higher tax bracket, due to the way payroll withholdings are calculated. This happened to me -- I get paid a monthly commission/bonus, usually around $500-700. Our payroll lady used to run a separate payroll check for the commissions, so that the tax would be based on a monthly frequency instead of weekly. When she quit, the owner started using an outside company to run our payroll. Now he groups our commission in with the regular salary, which makes it look to the government like I am getting that commission every week instead of once a month. So for that one paycheck, it throws me into a higher tax bracket and I get 28% witholding instead of 15%. For all of 2006, my W2 showed about $4500 fed tax withheld ... because of the change in payroll ... now in 2007, it is only June and I have already had $4600 withheld. But in the end, I kind of consider like a savings, because I will have a huge tax refund next year.

We really don't splurge on anything. We agreed on that so I could stay home. We stopped renting movies, going out, buy 2nd hand clothes, grocery shop with coupons and check sales.
I will have him check out a W4 form and see if that helps. I think he still has it set for 3 people and never changed it when our daughter was born.
He does get paid biweekly so if we can really scrape the check will be late but we can cover the rest with money from his next check.
I have been doing everything I can at home to make money but it just isn't enough. I might go ahead and get a few nights a week job doing something local. At least until we can get a little saved up and hopefully that will cut down on the stress. I am trying to start a business and it hasn't really taken off yet so I am a little down about that.
Thanks for all the responses and ideas! It is great to come somewhere and explain what is happening without bad judgment against you.

First off, we all have been or are in that boat, so if anyone judges you, they shouldn't be here, OK? And I thought Debtcruncher's post was excellent and I will personally try some of the tips he suggested. I think giving yourself some discretionary income is a great idea and you have to discipline yourself when it's out and say too bad, like he suggested. It's like losing weight. You can't cut out all of the bad stuff, because you would feel deprived, but you have to do it in moderation.
A small thing I started doing is bringing, not buying lunch at work. I also started buying Diet Pepsi (yes, my vice :oops: ) in 12-packs at the store, and found I was saving money that way, compared to getting them in the cafeteria.
I have made the commitment to track my spending as DC has suggested but am dreading to deal with the results!!
When you shop, have you looked into using your Store clubcard to get discounts that way? I can save almost 10 percent off my bill sometimes, which can add up.

kscornell,
I feel you on the pepsi thing. I am addicted and at .75 per can at work (9.00 for a 12 pack in the machine), I can get a 12 pack from walmart much cheaper and keep it in my office. I put one in the fridge each morning and save a fortune on soda. I also have started taking my lunch and my husband has also. WE buy out only on payday every other week. It saves more than you realize, we spend about $5.00 daily x 2 of us = 50.00 on lunches, OMG, didn't realize until we started tracking in Quicken software.

surveygrrl,
Something I did quite often when I was a stay at home mom was to list my children's baby clothes, outgrown toys, etc. on ebay. Sometimes I made an extra 100-125 week AFTER my listing costs. You need a digital camera to start up but you could get one (if you don't have) at a pawn shop fairly reasonable or if you have any wholesale stores (sort of like damaged items) around, we just got a camera and the docking station for 20.00.

It's good that you guys go out once every two weeks. I do this with my coworkers on payday. We all go to breakfast at the local restaurant and it meets my eating out needs for the next two weeks!

Debtcruncher,

You are right about tracking the smaller expenses. We never realized what we wasted until we wrote down everything that we spend $ on. I like the idea of giving yourself so much a month to have fun on. I know for me if I don't do something like that, then I'll get in a mood and go spend money on something I don't need. It's usually not a small ticket item either. We did the envelope system for awhile. We did this for groceries, taxes, utiities, etc. It really helped us learn to budget better. We are in a better place financially now and I'm not working right now. Honestly, we can stretch a dollar further than we ever realized. survey, I do demos for extra money. It's easy work with good pay. I make about $15-$17 per hour when I demo. Check out volition.com for merchandising, secret shopper, demo companies that you can work with in your area.

I used to demo too, lol!!! It was a hoot!! Do you do merchandise or food? I did food and loved doing the mixers!

Kscornell, I do use the store card, coupons and buy things on sale. I don't work outside the home so everything we eat is made here by me. I rarely splurge on soda. I do drink coffee in the morning and just can't cut it out. For the most part I try to drink water because it is free. Any little bit helps.

bflow, I have been going through everything and planning to go to a second hand store in town with some things. Sadly most of my kids clothes were already second hand so I feel weird about listing the stuff on Ebay.

Cowamp, I started clicking and doing surveys. I started a site to keep track of what is good and what is not worth my time. I don't know if I can list the site on here. I have made some small change but better then nothing at all.
I have never heard of demo before. I am going to check that out.

I became a stay at home mom in April of this year when my son got too sick to stay in daycare. My husband and I feel it is best that I jsut stay home with him due to his medical conditions, it's not worth him getting sick or hospitalized again.
So, that cut our income back by about 2000.00 a month. All of my pay, and all of my husband's pay was plenty for the bills. Mainly, I would cover the bills and my husband covered food, gas and whatever it was that we wanted to buy.
Cutting back your expeneses by 2K a month, is HARD! However, we have done good, and so far have been making it.
I love staying home with my son, so like you I have been doing things on the side to try to bring in 'extra'. Every little bit helps.

I wish you well and I hope that you can find out the plan that is right for you.