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"I love Friday mornings. For one, I don&amp;#039;t have to make the hour and a half commute to my office; I also get to help my kids get off to school in the morning (and feel like a &amp;quot;real&amp;quot; mom) and I get the rest of the day uninterrupted to pour a steaming cup of coffee, sit at my computer and catch up on work. I also get to catch up on all of the errands and housework I need to do. It&amp;#039;s relaxing and I look forward to it so much. I also look forward to Fridays because that means it&amp;#039;s time for my weekly telephone call from Laura Rowley, a Personal Finance Consultant with Yahoo! Finance and my personal debt coach. We hadn&amp;#039;t spoken in a few weeks because of appointments that had come up, but we spent awhile catching up, having some laughs and philosophizing about all things money. After her usual prodding and advice (what about those student loans, Leah?) we got on the topic of &amp;quot;how much is really enough?&amp;quot; We weren&amp;#039;t talking about dollar figures really, but more about how we ever survived when we were making less. I asked her, &amp;quot;Why is it that I seem to be in the same financial straits that I was in when I made $20,000 per year less? Why don&amp;#039;t I have a cushy savings, a better home or more discretionary income? Where did I go wrong?&amp;quot; While I&amp;#039;ve definitely made more mistakes than I care to list, Laura assured me that it&amp;#039;s not all my fault. For one, when I was making $20,000 less, gasoline was $2.00 less per gallon. My commute was also fourteen miles round-trip and now its one hundred and forty-four. With the increased commute, my automobile maintenance costs have quadrupled. I have to get an oil change almost once per month. My kids were also younger and their needs were less. They sure ate a lot less, and I could get their shoes at &amp;quot;Pay-Less&amp;quot; for twelve dollars a pair. My food costs have now tripled (two teenage girls and a ten year-old boy who come famished from after-school sports and have the appetites of grown men) and their shoes are about $50 to $75 per pair. Matthew decided to grow five inches this year and his poor clothes (and my budget) just couldn&amp;#039;t keep up. I won&amp;#039;t even mention the increased costs of cable! So okay, it&amp;#039;s not all my fault. Laura helped me to see that expenses seem to creep up at the same rate as our incomes. The only choice we have is to keep cutting or make more income to see a real difference. I guess I am to be grateful that my income has matched inflation and the growing needs of my children. Thanks, Laura for helping me to see it. How have you kept up with rising costs? Where have you had to cut back? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/life/a42882/keeping-up-inflation-8709/>