I need the encouragement and inspiration from this thread this year! DH suspects he may be let go at his job sometime this year. At least we have his military retirement, but that will only go so far.

We plan to increase our emergency fund dramatically while we can. SO we are combing over our expenses from the last 2 years looking at how we can cut costs. The first casualty will be cable. They are increasing basic/extended by $12 a month and adding disconnect fees by Feb 1. We can keep the DSL and watch via internet for most of the programming we like. We bought a digital antenna for the LCD TV and were amazed at the quality of the picture and how many free channels we found... all local and PBS. Plus our library has an enormous DVD collection of movies and seasons of TV shows that we can borrow for free.

We are setting goals for things we want to accomplish and trying to decide priorities. Most are house repairs that will need to be done in the next five years... new furnace, carpet, hot water heater.

Here's praying that 2010 treats all us better than the last 2 years!