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"This weekend was very strange and exceedingly quiet for me. On Saturday, my three kids left with their dad for their annual week&amp;#039;s vacation up north. While I was looking forward to a little bit of time alone to get some much-needed things done around the house, I guess I was unprepared for just how empty my home is without their musical little voices all around me at all times. It is now Sunday and I miss them terribly. With six days left to go, I&amp;#039;ve decided that I will use this time to my advantage. Not only have I tidied this house from top to bottom and cleaned out drawers and made a donation pile, I&amp;#039;ve decided that the week ahead is when I&amp;#039;m going to look at where I&amp;#039;ve been and where I&amp;#039;m going financially. It was about this time last year when I thoughtfully and carefully laid out my goals for the year ahead and began to make plans to make them happen. It&amp;#039;s time for me to take stock and evaluate how close I&amp;#039;ve come to meeting them and to look at areas where I could&amp;#039;ve done better (there are plenty). Not only will I do some goal checking and making, but I think that this is the perfect time to re-do my budget and reassess areas where I can cut back and save more. I know that right now, in addition to everyone&amp;#039;s biggest expense (housing and car), my weakest financial areas are food, gasoline and clothing. While I can&amp;#039;t control food or gasoline costs, I can definitely look for more creative ways to make low-cost meals for my family and stretch those food dollars even further. I can also most definitely cut down on clothing costs (this is my biggest area of weakness) and also begin to shop at the consignment shops that all my friends and neighbors go to (they always look like a million dollars). I will also take another close look at my cable bill, insurance costs and my utilities to see how and if can save some money here and there too. While visitors to my home laugh at me when they see my microwave, coffee pot and other electronics always unplugged so that I can save money, the joke is on them because I have shaved about $20 per month with that one simple move. Try it and see if it works for you. I miss my kids so much; but I can really turn this time into something positive. Do you do an annual check-up of your finances? Do you prepare and stick to a budget? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/life/a42361/taking-inventory-12992/?src=shelter_footer>