Its been a year since my husband left me. He's claiming to be totally disabled and I understand I would have to pay him $828 a month in alimony (this is a worse case scenario).

So my new goal is to save $828 a month. While I'm fighting his claim that he's totally disabled, I want to see if I can live on so little. If I lose my case badly, I'll have acclimated myself to the new budget and I'll have a nest egg. If I win, I'll have a nest egg, and have hopefully been even more thrifty.

So far I'm two weeks into my new budget. I'm counting every penny I spend. I write both cash and credit card purchases in my check book. The credit card purchases go against my check book total, so when the bill comes, I can immediately pay it. The cash purchases get noted, with a 0 in the balance line.

I cleaned out my standup freezer, found a lot of meat and had a big barbecue on the weekend and made myself up a bunch of freezer lunches in advance. Next weekend, I'll cook up something else and do the same thing until I have a nice stockpile of meals. I'm still trying low carb, or at least complex carb along with high protein. And I'm buying fresh veggies too as they come on sale.

I'm also cleaning out my cupboard and organizing the food. Some things I donated at church for the local food bank because they are white flour/sugar items I can't eat. The rest are organized so I can see what I have by category.

So far I haven't gone over budget yet. I have plenty to eat, I have the library for entertainment, and the internet. So far, so good.