Generally speaking, we Clinches like to save our financial crunches for the first part of the year.

Yes sir, there's nothing like a health insurance invoice and the good old quarterly estimate combined with the Christmas credit card bill to send one reeling over the edge of the end of their fiscal year.

Why it's just fun on top of fun.

We, as a people, approached the Christmas season of 2008 with thrifty intentions, economical objectives and a frugal agenda.

We cut corners here, shaved expenses there and when push came to shove, we bit the bullet and bought off-brand cookies.

We are nothing if not the long-suffering type. Whatwe should have realizedwas thatwe lacked the wherewithal to anticipate the cost of Christmas wish lists. Never mind factoring in strands of lights and who would have thought that we would have had to spring for the eggnog on Christmas Eve?

I tried to diversify and be creative with the funds. A charge on this card and a withdrawal on that, a little cash here and a couple of dollars there, and I once found myself face deep in the cushions of the car, as I dug for extra change to buy a present for one of the boy's secret angels.

Would it never end?

Then there were the Christmas cards and postage, and if the boys can't pull a Snickerdoodle out of the freezer at will, then it isn't really Christmas.

Purchase the roast beast, add up the twos, carry the nine, and before you know it, our ho-ho-ho-ing was putting us in the poor house, and I, for one, woke up with a financial hangover on Dec. 26.

It had me thinking to myself that the only thing that would enhance the experience was if the weather turned sour and my beloved spouse (a.k.a. Mr. What are you doing now?) spent a couple of hours with me in the home office.

Ask and you shall receive.

"Who are you calling? What are you calling them for? Are you always on the phone? Let's talk about this bill. Let's look over that statement." And it doesn't get any better than when one's husband peeks his head into the cavernous 401(k) account and asks his wife and head bookkeeper, "Hey, where did all of the stinking money go?"

Happy New Year to me.

That husband of mine is nothing if not in tune with today's market, so while he knew that things weren't good in the world of retirement accounts, it's always a blow to see it on paper.

And there's nothing, and I do mean nothing, that will turn a charitable man into a tightwad faster than opening a mutual fund statement and seeing that what was once a nice little nest egg, now has a big crack down the middle and that all of its contents have spilled into the Dumpster.

Being the kind of man who takes the horse by the reins, he thought that now might be as good a time as any to implement what he had learned from his financial-restraint gurus on talk radio. "You know," he said to start the conversation, "I heard the other day that there's a brilliant man in New Brunswick who gives his wife an envelope with cash in it every month as an allowance,

Now there's an answer for you. Why, if we weren't already married, I would have thought that he was trying to pick me up.

He let it go for a day or two until yesterdaywhen he walked in with a wealth of new information and called out, "Hey, Lori! I heard on the radio that a guy in Boise has cut back his grocery bill by 50 percent!"

"What'd he do?" I asked.

"He told the little missus that when she ran out of groceries that she had to come up with creative ways to make the food on hand stretch for the rest of the month!"

"That's cool," I replied, "but I heard of a wife in Norfolk who shaved a boatload off their household expenditures and greatly reduced their electric bill."

"How'd she do that?" he asked with great interest.

"She pulled the plug on her husband's radio."

Lori Clinch is the mother of four sons and the author of the book "Are We There Yet?" You can reach her at www.loriclinch. com.