When Ava was first born, Lindsay and I made the decision for Lindsay to be a stay-at-home mom.  Of course this meant we'd have to find a way to make ends meet with one salary rather than two. We were committed and took the plunge. Every night, for close to nine months, I would wake up at 3am, without fail--no alarm clock--just woke up.  I would find my way downstairs to the basement office.  I'd wake the computer and open up our budgeting program.  I would crunch numbers, create and delete categories, move budgeted money around, research ways to save a buck, etc.  Each night I got closer to creating a scenario that would allow us to operate comfortably on my one teacher's salary.   Once the budget was in place and proved its worth, I no longer had to wake up at 3am.  Of course, being a habit now I still occassionaly woke up at 3am...but over time that dissipated. Over the next few years we had two more children, Henry and Ella.  The nigh...