Budgets and all that fun stuff

Recently, Hubby and I sat down to figure out our budget. We have been tweaking this sucker every month for the last little while, in the effort to get it to fit our means, our needs, and possibly some desires, too. Lots of fun when you have money, not so much when it's a tight month.
It's amazing how much a little error can cause the blocks of your budget to come tumbling down around your ears. That is the time when a sense of humour, a huge sense of humility, and some creative thinking come into play. For example, our budget for next month. We, of course, base it on the money we have at hand, to determine what we can afford, assuming, of course, that the amount of income does not change a whole lot. Last night, we happily sat down and tweaked the budget so that we had everything the way we needed/wanted it to be, and based on what we THOUGHT we had made, we even had enough to reconnect our satellite. Let me just say I am thankful we have been without that for the past year, so the true withdrawal pangs are gone. And I am extremely thankful we had not yet told the kids about getting the satellite back.
Because, you see, we discovered this morning that we had miscalculated the income from delivering flyers by, oh, about $200. A month. The problem, with this, in case it's not obvious, is that we had accounted for every penny of this $200/month. Scramble, scramble, grumble, whimper, scribble, scribble. How on earth can we do what we said we would do when we are short by that amount every month?
I must admit, I lost my faith for a short time. I panicked. I griped and whined and wanted to cry. I got stressed and even had a few chest pains, at which point, of course, I took a bunch of deep breaths, tried to relax, and prayed a bit. And sat down with the budget to play with it.
The big thing that I felt was important was that, for once, we were going to start the habit of tithing. We had not been doing that, and both felt it was important. So when I was playing with it, I really didn't want to mess with that, despite the fact that reducing our giving would solve everything. I initially reduced it to 5%, but didn't feel right about that. So I fiddled, and I think I have come up with a budget that will still work, AND will allow us to truly tithe.
Oh, it won't be easy. It does involve a lot of careful thought with purchases and a bit of personal sacrifice. Definitely a leap of faith. It can be done, though it won't be "comfortable", and maybe, just maybe, we will be blessed in the end for tithing. I can hope, anyway. If we can make it to the end of the year and have "enough" to cover all the expenses we have, and to start the new year on a good foot, I think it will be worth it.