SAVING ~ frugality is such a pretty word!!!

I was always the kid that spent her tooth fairy money before I lost the tooth. I’ve always wanted more, bigger, better. Some people call it discontentment. I say “I have goals!” I love my life but I want to be better, smarter, kinder, stronger, faster (I see Superman flying through the sky!).

When we started thinking about moving, of course, money was in the forefront of our minds. The market being in the state that it is in right now, we were told by our realtor that we would get a lower price for our house than we anticipated. Not a problem! If I haven’t told you this about myself yet, I am a FIXER. My mind started racing.

#1 I wrote out our budget and rated each bill in order of importance.

Mortgage….important. Electricity…..important. Life insurance…..important. Lawn guy…..not so important. Exterminator…..not so important. And so on. I cancelled almost $500 worth of bills per month.

#2 For our wedding, I received many items of gold jewelry. My husband is Chinese and in the Chinese tradition, it is customary to give jewelry as wedding gifts. Every piece was absolutely beautiful! Almost 25 years later, I’m going to be honest with you…I’ve never worn any of it! I am NOT a jewelry person. Well, the price of gold right now is over the top so I went to my nearest jeweler and handed him my plastic ziplock bag of jewelry. He went to the back of the store, I think he ate lunch because he was back there awhile! When he emerged, calculator in hand, he handed me the calculator with a number typed in. I kept looking at the number wondering where the decimal point was. The jewelry store owner said, “I don’t just hand this much money out every day!” I made $4000!!!! Thank you to all those wonderful wedding gift givers!

#3 I am NOT a coupon person! Meet the new me….a coupon person. I don’t ever go to the store unless I go through my coupons first. I’m not keeping a record of how much I save but I know it’s in the hundreds of dollars.

#4 I love to eat out! With a family of eight, the bill can be rather large. So….we stopped eating out. I am trying to be more creative with meal planning. We take trips to BJ’s to buy in bulk WITH COUPONS. My son is in the chorus at school. They have a program where you buy a grocery store gift card and 6% of anything we spend on groceries goes into an account for my son. We can apply that money to field trips, concert attire, etc.

#5 We stopped paying for haircuts (I learned how to be my own hairstylist), piano lessons (my older boys teach the younger kids), soda (we all drink water), home phone (we have a magic jack that hooks up to our computer). We make long distance phone calls with our cell phones.

#6 I bought Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University.  I’ve heard wonderful things. Can’t wait to read it with the LOML whenever I can get him to sit long enough.

On our journey of frugality, God has blessed us immensely. Surprise stock options from my husband’s work, raises that we didn’t expect, gifts from family. We’ve learned to think before we spend, be creative with our time, and to appreciate what we have.

I hope this gives y’all some ideas on how to save a little money. How are y’all saving money in this economy?

Love ya,Linda