Oh the zero

When Dan and I were first married I sat down with pen and paper to write out a projected monthly and yearly budget.  Well, actually many pens because nothing makes a budget more impressive, more meaningful and thus more easily attained than different sparkly colors.  After I was done I was heartbroken because there was absolutely no way we would be able to make it. WE WERE DOOMED!  I worried and fretted about it over the course of a few days until I finally sought help.

My mistake was discovered embarrassingly quickly and it came in the form of an extra zero tacked on the end of our textbook allotment increasing it by a factor of ten.  I went back relieved and dejected and jotted down a correct version of our budget with pencil and paper and that ugly thing was what we operated under for the remainder of our undergraduate studies.

Jump forward to last week.  So here is something else embarrassing, since I had Lee doing the budget just never happened.  Yikes, I know.  That's why when the kids and I got back from Grandma's house I sat down with Dan's new iPad and made us a handly little budget.  I used mint.com and that program is amazing.  It is almost as wonderful as multiple sparkly pens.  Our new budget is a thing of beauty with pie charts and bar graphs and everything.  I was so excited that now I could easily show Dan where we've been spending and our budget and he could be involved.  Then I stressed for four days straight.  No matter what I did we would be short each month.  I couldn't bridge the gap.  At one moment I decided not to tell Dan the next he needed to know.  I finally told him and when he got around to looking at the thing my mistake became apparent.  I had flipped an 8 and a 0 in our mortgage payment.  Oh you zero!  You always make a fool of me!  We are still tight on the budget, but at least we won't have to drink powdered milk.  That stuff is gross.