Free Darigold Milk and Yogurt!

I just signed up to get some coupons for free Darigold milk and yogurt! Every bit helps! Related Tags: freebies, coupons

Grocery Shopping Success!

I went grocery shopping this morning. My goal every week is to keep the grocery bill under $100. I'll probably try to trim it in the future, but for now, that is my goal. This morning's trip cost me $79 and some change! I probably have about $10 worth of stuff that I'll need to buy early next week, but that's still well under $100! I also have all my meals planned for this week, thanks to Menus4Moms, so there should be no eating out this week. Hopefully since I've posted that for the whole internet world to see, I won't cave to my desires for fast food!

Minor Victory

I have a problem with eating out. I don't love to cook, and all too often I find it easy to tell my husband to bring home dinner. Tonight I had a serious craving for our local Mexican restaurant, but instead of begging my hubby to pick up dinner, I made Chicken Parmesan, spaghetti, and broccoli. And you know what? It tasted pretty good!

Walking to school

The weather is warmer, the flowers are blooming, the air is crisp, and it is just absolutely beautiful outside! Gas is $3.47 a gallon, our van doesn't get great gas mileage, and we don't have a lot of extra money. These are all great reasons to walk my daughter to school in the morning instead of driving her. That is exactly what we've been doing for the last two weeks. The benefits have been more than financial. On the way to school, I've had some great discussions with Liz about what's going on in her life and what she's thinking. On the way home, I have time to plan my day. I'm getting some great exercise, too! Estimated savings: 20 cents. It doesn't sound like much, but after two weeks, that buys me a gallon of milk. Related Tags: frugal living, saving money, walking

Being Frugal

Once upon a time, 9 years or so ago, my husband and I lived a very frugal life. We had just had our first child, and I was a new stay at home mom. My husband worked at our local Christian radio station, and though the work was fulfilling, his paychecks were very small. At the time I became very adept at stretching our money. Over the years, my husband has switched jobs a few times, and our income has gone up considerably. We welcomed our second child into the family, and our expenses increased also. What they say is true. When your income goes up, you find ways to spend it. I became more frivolous in my spending. It was no big deal, because we could afford it. Two and a half weeks ago my husband lost his job. Fortunately he starts another job next week, but the pay is very commission based, and it will take a few months for him to get off the ground. As we have been walking through the trial of unemployment, I have been reflecting on my spending habits. I don't think I've been a very good steward of our resources. I could stand to make some major improvements. In the short term, we need to make our money stretch, so we don't spend up all our savings while we're waiting for Shannon's paychecks to get bigger. In the long term, we just need to be better managers of our money. I would love to see us become debt free in the next year. We're off to a pretty good start. We don't have any car payments, our credit card balance is around $2000, and our student loan is around $7000. I think we can do it, but it will take some discipline. I thought about adding posts about our frugal journey to my other everyday-life blog, but this area is going to take some intense focus, so I decided a dedicated blog would be better. I figure if I write down the steps I'm taking to save money, it will make me think and grow a bit more in the area of frugal living. We'll see where I'm at a year from now. Related Tags: frugal living, saving money