What do you do when you HATE....

I was a SAHM with a working partner for 2 years. He only made about $30,000 a year, so money was tight, but we managed ok.

I budgeted intensely. I limited groceries to $40 a week, gas to $20 a week, budgeted us $30 a month for entertainment, etc etc. And then I forced us to stick to the budget by hiding all the credit cards and ATM cards. We spent only cash, and only got to take the budgeted amounts out of the bank each week. We set up all of our bills to automated-pay so we couldn't try to "swing" anything.

Limited driving, planned meals way out ahead of time, shopped around for the cheapest insurance, bought clothes and other items from resale shops, learned how to make lots of things from scratch, did all of our home and most basic car repairs (changing oil, replacing belts, spark plugs, etc).

Learned how to use the library to it's full advantage. Not only can you get books for free, but you can use the internet for free and at ours if you bring your own zip drive or memory stick you can download stuff for free, also at ours you can rent videos for $1 and keep them for a week, even new releases. Plus, they had a story hour at 10 am every morning. YOu had to stay their, but you could sit and read a book or something while the story was being read. The main advantage to all of this for me was that the library was only about 15 minute walk away.

Other tips for saving money:

Big box "club" stores (sams, costco, etc) are great for buying large amounts of non-perishable items at a cheaper per unit price. So go wild with the toilet paper, paper towels, houshold cleaners, etc. I do not recommend them for food unless you eat alot of prepackaged stuff or have a very large family.

Small family grocery stores may have a reputation for being pricier, but because their produce is often locally grown, it is therefore fresher and will have a much longer shelf-life (not to mention it contributes less to air pollution) so it is a better value unless you eat your produce really fast.

Always have a list, whatever you are shopping for. Learn how to stick to the list and DO NOT IMPULSE BUY. Even if you "forgot" to put something on the list - don't buy it. Learn to write better lists. This will really keep you from spending more than you want.

Bring a calculator when you shop. Determine how much you want to spend before hand, and add it up (don't forget sales tax) as you put things in the cart. If you reach the limit too soon, determine what you don't need or try to find similar, cheaper items. This method works best if you only bring the limited amount of cash with you - that way you can't reason that you really needed to spend more. It also will help you to keep from budgeting unreasonably small amounts of money after a few weeks of living on rice and beans (or cereal and lunch meat, whatever).

Pricey organic stores often have certain items CHEAPER than the average mainstream stores. Especially if you buy pre-packaged vegetarian foods, soy milk, soy yogurt, soy cheese, etc. Also, they often sell whole grains and flour in bulk, so you can buy only what you need (no waste). This is because they sell these items much faster than your average grocery store - also, as an added bonus, the food is often fresher because of the higher turnover.

Come up with a list of non-perishables you use frequently, and stock up whenever you see these on sale. We eat literally tons of pasta every year, but the whole wheat kind we like is very pricey, so last year when our grocery store had it nearly 80% off, I bought about $300 worth of pasta. It lasted us most of the year, and we saved a bundle.

Cook from scratch using simple ingredients as much as possible. Pre-packaged food is expensive and less nutritious. Fancy food often involves expensive items and is often bungled since you've never made that dish before. Stick with tried and true, adding variety to dishes you already know how to make.

Two words - Crock pot. This thing not only cooks while you are doing other things, it can turn the worst cut of meat into mouth-watering tenderness, left over produce into hearty veggie soup, even do the tedious job of boiling down stock.

Find other sources of income you can do from home (reasonably.) I typed and proofread papers for students at our high school for a small fee, also did some transcription work I found online. It only made about $100 a month or so, but that gave us some "fun" money which made life a little more livable.

Ok - so this was really, really long. But if you need more ideas - pm me and I'll try to help!

What kind of job do you have now? There are couple of places I can think of off the top of my head that hire folks for night and week-end shifts, including hotels/motels and hospitals. For the hotel gig, you'd probably need clerical skills, for hospital night work, it would probably be more along the lines of custodial duties.

If you have customer service/phone experience think of 24 hour lines. Auto insurance companies often have 24 hour customer service/claims. Same with internet service providers. I used to work at night doing tech support. Police dispatch, automobile club , some banks and credit cards . . .

I have no idea what's in your area.
check webistes of all the local banks and insurance companies. Or check a temp agency.

Have you ever thought of working for an answering service? It's like a call center that answers the phones for businesses after hours. Most answering services are open 24 hours a day, so you can usually choose a shift that works best for you. I worked for an answering service in high school and made decent money. I also came away with many hysterical customer stories.