A new budget plan

It's a Wednesday that should feel like a Tuesday but feels like a Thursday! I had a re-check appointment at the root canal dentist this morning to check on my abscess/infected tooth. It has improved with the week long penicillin treatment, but not all the way gone. I guess she thinks it will keep improving because she told me to go ahead with getting started on the crown (with my regular dentist) but come back in for her to check it again before they put on the permanent crown (so I'm assuming the crown will be a 2 visit thing - ugh).

DS is on his way to his latest interview on the job he has been trying for (what seems like forever now). This company is so big that this interview isn't even in the same city his first interview was! Goodness. The suburbs around here all run into one another and hard to tell when you've moved on from one to the next, but this office is not quite as far as the first department he interviewed with.  He's being a bit frustrating - just waiting to see if this job comes through or not and not applying for anything and everything he can in the meantime. He really needs to stay on top of this job search and keep working at it, rather than just hoping this one comes through.  If he doesn't get this job he's going to have to find something - even if it's not IT work and if he wants to get a good IT job, he's going to have to go finish his degree.

I'm going to try a new tactic in regards to what DH has been spending on landscaping and such. He just keeps draining me of money. He'll tell me he needs A and B....oh and then needs C...and while I am picking that up he needs D....Little by little my savings get eaten up, because he doesn't want to work within a budget (a dirty word to him). So, on payday I'm going to hand him an envelope with cash in it (still trying to determine the amount) and say this is what you have this month for your various projects. Make him decide and budget out what it gets spent on.  Maybe then he'll be more aware on what got spent for the month if he actually sees the money and spends it himself.

The delicate trick will be not to give him too much! If I give him more than he needs he will spend it - guaranteed, even if he didn't need to. But, I have to give him a little more than he needs so he has enough to cover some of those things he'll come up with that he didn't know he needed!

I know he wants 3 pallets of landscaping blocks (at first it was 2 but last week it changed to 3.....see what I mean?) and that will cost $412 total. Other things he has mentioned are a load of topsoil and more weed and feed and also 2 more whiskey barrel planters. I don't know how much the topsoil is, but probably in the $300 range. Since he used to work construction he has a friend who will give us a pretty good deal. The barrels are about $30 each.  Anyhow, I'm going to give him in the $600 range (which still leaves me with putting some in savings and some reserve in my checking) and he can figure out how/what to spend it on. It will be interesting to see how this little idea works out.