what are some things parents are?

My husband and I have a 2 1/2 year old son and a 4 month old daughter. My son and daughter are both on WIC, which helps. We tried for food stamps, but they said my husband made too much money. My husband doesn't make enough. We have utilities, house payment, car payment, insurance, and cell phone bills. That's it. We still only have 100 dollars left out of his paycheck to get groceries for My husband, my son, and myself to last us to the next paycheck. he only gets paid the 1st and the 15th of each month. We don't go anywhere or do anything. I stay at home with our children because we can't afford daycare so that I can get a job. I wanted to work nights, but my husband has to be at work a 4 in the morning and he doesn't get home until 7 or 8 at night. We are living from paycheck to paycheck. My son didn't get a birthday party for his 2nd birthday, which was the first birthday that my husband got to attend because he was deployed overseas for our son's 1st birthday. My son only got a movie and a iron man action figure from us. His christmas, he only got 20 hot wheel cars, which are only a dollar a piece. We don't get to have family outings. We are struggling. At least I can say that we do our best and that our son never goes hungry and he has a roof over his head. Our bills get paid and we mainly eat Ramen Noodles. You know what is sad about it all? My husband is a Army Soldier in the U.S. Military and we have to live like this. My husband has already been to war for 15 months in Iraq. He missed all our son's firsts. But we can't get food stamps because he "makes too much". I'm sorry, but he made more money before he joined the military when he worked at Wal-Mart. That is Pathetic...

My Fiance and I have a 8 month old son. His work is pretty slow and I am a stay at home mom. We are doing side jobs. I am babysitting while I am home. My fiance is also doing some side jobs, like fixing things for people and earning a little extra money on the side...also we have cut out cable, internet, and we don't have a home phone. We go grocery shopping every week instead of waiting until we are out of food, we found it's better on the bank account than one lump sum...I don't know if you have any kind of water parks or parks in general that would be nice for the family...

vacations more than a weekend long (and sometimes all together), eating out, cell phone service that is not needed, a lot of things really.

Edit" if push comes to shove then i would go with out cable and internet..but not a phone. I would go to a food bank and ask for donations if i could not get wic or food stamps before i'd make a choice between food or car payment...but right now my car is paid off, so luckily i don't have to worry about that one atleast.

i have a 14 month old daughter and both my hubby and i works very hard i work nights and he works day shift due to no childcare available we are finding it VERY HARD, but we must do it to keep the family and pay the bills.