Fun-loving FRUGALITY!

What a week this has been! We’ve been super busy. But what FUN it’s been to be at home!!! (Thank you, sweet husband of mine, for letting me be at home and take care of you guys. I love you for taking care of us so well.)

Making the decision to be back home full time, we decided that my job would no longer be to MAKE us money…but now it would be to SAVE us money. I was excited and up for the challenge! I am so not THERE yet....I haven't arrived. There are amazing women out there who inspire me, encourage me, and get me energized for the task. I don't even know these women personally, but love receiving their giftedness through other blogs and sites. In my "novice-ness" (is that even a word?!?), I would love to share some of the things we did as a family this week to be as frugal as possible.

One way is through couponing. I have to first put the disclaimer out there....I AM SO GREEN AT THIS! I'm not the best at the couponing game. My sweet friend, Nickie, introduced me to the power of couponing a couple of years ago. I've partially participated (when I've felt like it), but now I'm serious about it, and it's actually pretty fun competing against myself each week.

Here are the results of a couple of my outings this past week:

Kroger...

2 4-packs of Angel Soft toilet paper

6 packages of Birds-Eye frozen vegs

2 grill spices

2 Pillsbury Family Sized Brownie desserts

Total spent = $1.96

The picture is blurry, I know...and you can't even see it.

But you have to trust me....$1.96!

CVS this morning....

1 gallon of milk

1 shaving cream

1 hairspray

1 Crest Pro-Health toothpaste

and 1 double pack of newspapers (for next week's coupons)

Total spent = $1.06 out of pocket, with $6.89 in Extra Bucks to spend next time I shop.

I'm not bragging, because I'm definitely not the only one out there who does this. There are many, many, many talented women who do this far more and far better.

But isn't that FUN to know that it CAN be done?!

Another way we were frugal this week was with pure will-power and determination!

We undertook 'THE GARAGE' project today. It was a MESS....a ROYAL MESS!

So we took EVERYTHING out, so we could see what we had to work with.

All clear! Now we can move things around and start over.

We spent the afternoon clearing out, dividing items into "garage sale", "get items back to rightful owner" and "trash" piles. The rest we put back neatly. Hopefully we can keep it that way for awhile! (I'd give you an "after" photo, except that our other 3 piles are currently neatly piled in the middle of the newly clean garage...so it would still look like a wreck to you)

As you know, on any home project day, the last thing you want to do is cook. Or clean. At lunch, all we really wanted to do was go get a hamburger. Easy! (Also, I'm behind on menu planning and regular grocery shopping, so food items to choose from are slim pickins around here!)

We decided to scrape the barrel and eat what we could find. We ended up having a salad with leftover chicken, carrot sticks and fruit. How much cheaper...and healthier...than a burger!

At dinner, we were totally tempted, yet again, to eat out. We were exhausted! And we STILL hadn't been to the store. We scraped the very BOTTOM of the barrel this time and had leftover ham (a tiny bit between all of us), leftover spinach/rice casserole, frozen peas and we all split a sweet potato. We all got filled up...it was cheaper than eating out....we cleaned out our frig...and it was healthier than fast food. We won all around!

I'm encouraged that we chose well in an exhausted moment.

Lastly, I wanted to direct you to a great blog I found today. The writer over at Simple Mom wrote a really encouraging piece entitled The Emotional Benefits of Becoming Debt Free. I found it encouraging and helpful as we plug ahead in our serious quest to "Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another..." (Romans 13:8)

Thanks for traveling along with me on this frugal road...and letting me share our journey with you!