After feeling not that great all week because of my car troubles, I finally got over myself, and am looking forward to a great weekend! Hubby is leaving tomorrow on a business trip, so tonight will be spent getting caught up on laundry and doing other errands to prepare for his trip, but at least they'll be done and out of my way.

Tomorrow, I need to go to Dad's to take care of his grocery shopping and other errands he needs done. My sister is taking the kids so I can do all of these in peace. Then, I'm picking up my kids and her son and taking them to my brother's house for my niece's high school graduation party (wow that's a lot of relatives!). We'll stay a few hours there and then return to my sister's for a sleepover. Although I'll miss my hubby while he's away, sleepovers at my sister's are the kind of fun things that I can do while he's away. We'll have a fantastic time...

Then on Sunday the kids have a birthday party to go to, at a new place that I've been meaning to check out for a while. Then we're going back to the friend's house for a barbeque. So it should be a great weekend. I anticipate some spending, all budgeted: 1) $$ for graduation present, 2) birthday present for this kid and one next week using Toys R Us gift cards, 3) Big bottle of wine for sister's house. Not bad for a weekend of fun...

I'm starting to give my budget another look now that things have settled down from my last round of changes. One positive is the electric bill. I mentioned that I'm on budget billing, where they charge me the same amount each month. I currently pay $133/month for the budget, plus an additional $30 or so to make up for the overrun I had last year. Well the good news is that June is the last month to pay the overrun, so the bill should drop from $163 to $133 next month. Also, the $133 is budgeted. Since November, I've actually spent $196.48 less than they've charged me. I'm hoping I can keep this up, so that in November, when they review my account, they drop the monthly charge to less than $133, and I'll have a credit balance to pay for the first month or two. So far, I haven't used the air conditioning, except to try it out, and don't intend to until at least next weekend.

Other than that, I'm not sure where I'll focus next. I think I'll tackle the phone bill. I used to have the unlimited everything plan, advertised for $39.99/mo, but really costing $56.95 by the time they added all of the taxes and fees. I decided that was way too much, so I dropped down to unlimited local ($21.95/mo) and got my regional and long distance from Pioneer Telephone at some ridiculously low rate that I don't even remember. But between the two, my phone bills over the last few months have still been around $50-$52. Not exactly the great savings I was hoping for. The biggest problem is that neither of us is all that disciplined about using our cell phone exclusively after 9:00 and on weekends, when it's free. (Or during the day for that matter, since we usually have spare peak minutes at the end of the month). I'm going to make a concerted effort in June to only use the cell phone. If I can do it, then I can start working on hubby. If I can't do it, there's no way he'll do it, and I'll need to find another option...