semi-necessities: the rest

home improvement: we put a variable amount here every month, depending on jake's pay month to month. this category is not for window treatments (boo). it's for gas for the lawnmower, or weedkiller (still working on getting hubs on the "green" bandwagon), or maybe a little mini-furnace or something this winter. needs more so than wants.

gifts: $10/month. we really don't have that many people with whom we exchange gifts. truthfully we are more about experiences and time together than material things (that few people really need, and just end up in a goodwill or re-gift box or the trash -- if we're honest). we set an approximate $15 spending limit on gifts. basically this is for birthdays or random occasions that come up throughout the year (of course there are times when we spend more; $15 is a guideline).

christmas: may seem redundant, but this one is for christmas gifts. we put $10/month here. but this also covers any christmas decor we may find we need. i know, not a true need, but something might come up. like maybe christmas card postage. or we may want to throw an impromptu holiday social thing. obviously this amount won't cover very much; but we want to have a little money available just in case.

medical care: we put $5/month into this category. this is purely for routine care. co-pays, prescriptions, etc. i have a little money in an HSA left over from a previous job, so we are using that for now (fyi: every month they charge a $1 service charge and take it out of your account. may want to keep an eye on that if you have one you're not using). we're working on transitioning to more homeopathic...stuff? so this may go to help purchase essential oils, flower essences, etc. in the future.

dolly: our sweet princess. our baby. how we love her. but not more than $30/month. we estimated this would cover vet visits, and food, and occasional grooming. jake has been dabbling in her grooming recently, so that will save some. the first time we bought basically the cheapest food available. but now that we have had some time, we will likely replace that brand with something more natural (if it's not a million dollars). we also may try to get by with every other year vet visits. or something. we're not trying to invest in this dog by any means... we just want to love her and give her a good home and life (she was a rescue).
update: found some rachael ray natural dog food at food lion. didn't really read the label but i'm going to assume it's truly natural...and it wasn't that much more than any other dog food! there were also some all-natural treats - several options - that i picked up too

so that finishes up our semi-necessities! next we will look at wants, and ways we save on them. as always, questions are welcome :)

semi-necessities: insurance

*i wrote this a few days ago, before oct. 1...i will make some changes based on obamacare (what i know if it right now)

we thought life insurance would be more than we can afford, but it's actually not that bad. and we realized that the more in debt we are, really the more we need it. jake's insurance covers what we still owe on the house, and my student loans, and roughly one year of his salary, and a little extra (we rounded up). so if something were to happen to him tomorrow, i would be more than covered. i would have no more debt, be able to give him a nice funeral, and take some time off work without worrying about anything. since we live on jake's salary, with our debt out of the way i'd then be able to live on mine. i'd probably be able to still work only part-time (this would be most important to us if we had kids). it's making me sad to think about all this! but it's the reality. my insurance would cover my student loans, a funeral, and a little extra. since my salary pays for debt only, basically he would be wiping out what he would otherwise have had to cover on one less salary. if we had kids, our moms/grandmas would likely be able to cover childcare, so that wouldn't be an additional cost.

sorry to seem morbid. but after looking at all that, i am once again so glad we have life insurance. we pay about $64/month for both of us. mine is a 30 year term policy. but in 30 years my loans will be paid off anyway. the majority of jake's is a 30 year as well, but again, at that time the house and student loans will be non-issues. jake does have a little in a lifetime policy -- it would cover about a year of his salary. so that's the life insurance.

because i work part-time, we do purchase my health insurance. it is beyond outrageous what it would cost to add me to jake's; i would literally be working to pay for my insurance. so anyway. we have the super duper cheap-o plan from blue cross blue shield. it doesn't even cover maternity costs, but i guess obamacare is going to change all of it anyway? but i'll just talk about the way it is right now. i think my deductible is about $5000, with a maximum out of pocket of $8000. i happen to know that we qualify for financial aid at our local hospital. so if something awful happened, we would first apply for that. it would knock off about 50% of the bill (from my estimations and the info given on their website). NOT that anyone should plan their lives around a handout -- but we are talking worst-case scenario here. anyway, we would then take out our "emergency medical" amount in our savings, and if we still owe, we could tap into our IRAs. it's kind of scary to think about. but the truth is that i'm very healthy, and have no propensity for anything right now, so a high deductible plan is fine. we really could even raise it. on sept. 30 i received a letter from blue cross blue shield. they automatically chose a plan for me for next year that is similar to the one i have currently. it is simply unaffordable. i have been unable to get on the marketplace, but from what bcbs is telling me, since i am eligible to be added to jake's insurance, that negates my eligibility for any subsidies? which is pretty devastating for us. otherwise i would have been eligible for at least one (everyone under 400% of the poverty level) and probably the other (under 250% of the poverty level). i have chosen a bcbs "catastrophic" plan that looks like it would be fine - this is only an option for those under age 30. i am anxious to get into the marketplace to see what other options i have. so anyway, just keep in mind that our health insurance mindset/planning is now different than when i originally wrote this.

so there's insurance. not so much about ways to save, but more some important things to consider when looking at insurance. hope it's helped :)

semi-necessities: transportation

i know that is totally not a thing, but i didn't know what else to call this next section of budget categories i will address. so these are the things that are definitely not necessities, but they're not pure wants either. today we will talk about all things transportation.

jake's car is paid for. in the future, we plan to be able to say that about all vehicles, always. but right now we are still paying for my car. financing a car is about one of the least financially responsible things to do, in my opinion. i don't say that judgmentally; i'm in the boat with ya. i just feel so stupid continuing to pay for something that is losing value every day. a few months ago, we looked into getting a less expensive car, and essentially spending whatever amount we could get from the sale of my car to purchase one. but we decided against that, because my car (a honda accord) is one that holds its value much better than others, it's safe, will be a great family car, and gets pretty good gas mileage. so we took as much money out of savings as we felt comfortable with, and used it to pay a chunk down on the car. we refinanced it with a credit union. we did opt for a longer repayment term (five years), but we are paying the same amount we would have had we financed for four years. it still saves us over $100/month from our previous payment. again, our goal now is to pay off the student loans. when those are paid off, if we still owe on the car at that point, it will become our new goal. so for the sake of transparency here: we owe about $4500? on my car. we pay $115/month. the car is valued at about $13,000. so while our current situation is not our ideal, it's a lot better than the "norm". as i mentioned in the post about savings, we do plan to pay cash for our vehicles in the future. if we need a car and only have $1000 saved, well, we'll be driving a pretty lousy car until we can afford a better one :) but we will be driving our current cars until they plumb won't run anymore.

we have a local insurance agent, and ended up saving a lot over what i was paying previously. i have no idea if it's the best rate possible. ideally we would check around every few years. we do pay our insurance once a year, which is the most financially responsible way to do it. we put back about $75/month, so by the time the bill comes, we will have all we need to pay it. if you decide to do this (and i think you should if at all possible), it will cost a chunk up front. we have both our cars and our home all with the same people, so that also saves.

we put $10/month back for car maintenance. would be nice to do more, but we just can't right now. we would love to get it built up and keep $500 on hand at all times but we definitely aren't there yet. we use this money now for regular maintenance, but at some point we will need to have some saved up for other things as our cars age.

both our cars get good gas mileage - anywhere from 27-35 mpg, depending. we drive straight drives, which helps a little, and enables us to be in a little more control over mpg. we basically try to be smart about our gas usage. i don't make random trips to just one place; i combine stops in one general area and take one trip. we budget $40/month for jake (he gets paid mileage through work, but he has to drive 30 miles to get to his first stop, which is not covered by work), and $100/month for me. those are really not high amounts. but by being smart about it, we can make it work.

so that's that on transportation. the whole not-financing-cars thing is a touchy subject, i am aware. at the very least, please, PLEASE don't ever be satisfied with or adopt the mindset that you'll always have a car payment. you do get to decide that, you know.

how we save on necessities: clothing

i will start off by saying that for about 99% of us, this no longer is a necessity. we have clothes. some of you have kids, and they grow and need other clothes. new clothes, not necessarily. new to them, yes. but i will go into all of that.

hand-me-downs are awesome. ideally, i would love to have a few girlfriends who could get together and swap clothes as we get tired of them, or change sizes, or whatever. because we all have everything we need, and at this point it's about wants. i shop at goodwill and consignment stores for clothes for us, but again, those are all wants. we are actually moving toward a minimalist approach to our clothing (in addition to other areas of our lives), which means we only have a few of each type of clothing. normally people wear about 20% of their wardrobe 80% of the time. so we opted to just own the 20%.

in order to really master the art of thrift store dressing, you have to go regularly. some days you will leave with nothing. some days you will find 20 things. there is plenty of brand name, in-fashion clothing to be found at places like goodwill, and especially at consignment stores (but go to thrift stores first - they are cheaper). then there are those rare, fun, vintage goodies that everyone will wish they could "pull off" too :)

we budget $5/month for clothing. it would be fun to budget more, and maybe we can in the future. but truly we don't need any more. that amount is basically for new underwear when ours all have holes and can no longer be worn. so whenever i buy "new" clothes (rarely for me anymore does that actually mean new!), it comes from any additional spending/fun money i may have.

reading over this, we sound pretty hobo-esque. ha. but it all ties into cutting our expenses to the bare minimum in order to get out of "slavery" (the biblical description of debt/owing anything to anyone).

how we save on necessities: shelter

so basically shelter just means where you live. we do own our house, but are not necessarily of the opinion that owning is always the better option. home ownership comes with additional costs, such as taxes and improvements -- there are always improvements (needed and otherwise). so here's how we save.

we got a great deal on our house. fortunately, it was already pretty cute. but even if it wasn't "my style" or what i would have described as my dream house, jake would have bought it anyway, because of it being such a great deal. so i guess the first savings step would be to not be too shallow when it comes to your home. because we saved so much on the house, we were able to renovate the interior. another great thing was that jake has always been a terrific saver. because of this, we were able to put 20% down on our house. this makes our overall debt lower (although we won't really be satisfied until it's all gone), but also allowed us to avoid PMI. don't understand that whole thing completely, but i know finance people say to get rid of it asap, and you can't do that until you have at least 20% equity in your home (i think i worded that right). all of that adds up to mean that our monthly payment on our home is less than what we would pay to rent anywhere. we did finance for 30 years at a fixed rate of like 4%, which is awesome. as i've mentioned, our primary goal right now is paying off student loans. any extra money we have goes to that. when those are gone, we will likely refinance to 15 years, unless the interest rate is crazy, in which case we will just pay extra. either way, it is not our intention to be "slaves to the lender" (biblical description of debt of any kind, fyi) for 30 years of our lives, or even 15 years, if at all possible.

i will also address utilities here. as far as electricity, we do pretty great. we don't leave on lights. we rarely use our dryer. in the summer, our thermostat is at 74, and we leave our ceiling fans on; in the winter it's at 67. i am going to begin using my crockpot as often as possible, because it takes way less energy to heat it up than the oven. we set up the equal payment plan with duke power - it's a free service - so that allows us to plan our budget more accurately.

water/trash is where we find we sometimes go over what we've budgeted. in the winter, when i don't sweat, and even some throughout the rest of the year, i don't shower daily. jake really needs to because of his job and being around animal guts and all. we actually do use our dishwasher, but only when it's full. a lot of our things have to be hand washed, such as wood cutting boards and utensils, pizza stone (not just for pizza), cast iron skillet, etc. i still have no idea which is the greater evil - more energy by using dishwasher, or more water by hand washing - so we try to be wise in our use of both.

i think i've addressed all things shelter-related, but let me know if i've left something out or you have any further questions. :)

how we save on necessities: food

first, let's define "necessities": food, shelter, clothing. there are varying degrees of all of those, but keep in mind that the most basic forms are the necessary ones. that being said, i will address how we plan for all of those, and some ways we save.

"food" encompasses groceries and eating out. eating out is not a necessity, but i will include it in this post anyway.

we spend about $190/month on groceries, which for us includes household products such as toilet paper, etc., and personal products, such as toothpaste, etc. jake eats the same as two adults. so this really is a pretty low number (i am not trying to be prideful here; it began out of necessity, but now it's fun to see what we can get on that amount!). how do we do it? i only grocery shop every other week. that is the only time i enter a grocery store. we recently got a chest freezer so this next month will be my first attempt at once-a-month shopping. the less times you enter the store, the less you are exposed to temptations at the check out, or even walking the aisles. so the whole going to the store every day to get stuff for supper? definitely not the way to save money (yes, this does take planning. but trust me--you end up saving tons of time in the long run, too). i go in with a list, and only get what's on the list. i keep a tally of what i'm spending along the way (i know some can do it mentally, but i literally make a tally mark on my list -- this is vital, in my opinion!), so if i find i'm way under budget, i may pick up a few extras for fun. i try to not spend the entire amount every time, in case something comes up and we do have to run to the store between shopping trips -- but those times are few and far between. whenever i have it on my list to pick up dry goods, i get more than i need. that way i have a mini-stockpile in case something were to prevent me from keeping to my shopping schedule. we store the extras in our basement (regardless of where you live, you likely have room for a stockpile of your own...although it may require some decluttering, and that is a subject for a whole other post!). this way, we never fully run out of food. we pull from the stockpile to fill our pantry. so when we are out of something in the stockpile, that's when we put it on the list; not when we are completely out of it altogether. i coupon a little bit for some of our household and personal supplies. you can see some of my previous posts (sorry, i don't know how to link them :/) for more info on that. we use un-paper towels that i bought on etsy instead of regular paper towels. these can be washed and reused 40 bazillion times, rather than having to buy paper towels constantly. we do end up purchasing paper towels, too, but we rarely use them. i meet my mom at costco every now and then for things we can buy in bulk, like toilet paper and coffee and other random things. we do buy freezer bags, because i buy meat in the larger quantities, then split it up and freeze it. but as for regular ziploc bags, we don't use them. we also bought reusable sandwich bags on etsy, and wash them as needed. as for cleaning supplies: i plan to begin making my own as i run out of those in my couponing stockpile. that goes for laundry detergent too. we do not use dryer sheets. we only use our dryer for sheets and towels anyway - and that's only until sweetheart puts me up a clothesline - but we have wool dryer balls (guess where they're from - etsy) that cut down on dryer time (also saving on energy costs!). so i think that addresses everything grocery-wise.

right now our budget for eating out is $20/month. that is so super duper low. and no, it's not always fun. but cooking at home is so much cheaper and healthier! that basically allows for a meal out every month, or maybe two fast food meals every month. eating out technically falls into our "everything else" section of budget categories (see "our freaking budget", a finance blog i previously suggested), so we do allow ourselves a little extra some months. but for the most part we rarely eat meals out. there is a little bit of genius that goes into our plan: whenever any parent or grandparent offers to eat a meal out together, take it! they feel bad because they think we're way poor (when really we are only slightly poor, but way cheap). don't tell them our plan ;)

and that's it for food. you now know how much we budget for it, and how we save. as always, any questions are welcome!

investing

whenever i talk about investing, i feel like it comes across as though we have loads of money. well, we don't. you can invest regardless of your income. we choose to do it because we are able to right now, and we know there may come a stage in life (like, when we have a million kids we're trying to feed) that we are unable to continue doing so. so here are my suggestions.

if your company offers to match contributions to your 401k, DO IT. do the max amount they will match. this is free money. the more you contribute at a younger age, the better off you will be. dave ramsey has some chart that shows if you invest x amount from ages 20-30, and never again, it is exponentially better than investing 2x from ages 50-60. the longer you let your money grow, the more you will have.

we have an edward jones man. while we know a bit about everyday finances, we know nothing about investments. so basically we told him that we want to put a certain amount back every month (which is not very much), and he handles where that goes.

to be completely honest, i'm kind of torn on the issue of investing. i strongly feel that as a christian, i should depend on God to provide. i know He will provide for my needs. and jake and i are not the type to desire to go on extravagant world adventures in our old age. also, the idea of "retirement" is really not biblical. so for us, on one hand, investments are basically savings that are doing something (growing) rather than sitting around in a bank. they are something we could use should an emergency arise. on the other hand, jake may have to stop working at a certain age because of health reasons. he's very healthy, and so is his whole family, but with powerlifting, at some point his joints or something may decide they're no longer happy with him.

to summarize: we don't invest because we want a luxurious retirement; we invest because we feel it's a wise way to save our money for whatever the future holds. we invest through edward jones, contributing a certain amount every month for now. if your employer matches, you should contribute to your 401k. hope this has helped :)

saving

what i will be talking about today is liquid savings, as in an actual savings account.

we don't follow dave ramsey's method exactly. technically we do the 10-10-80 budget (10% tithe, 10% savings, 80% everything else), and beyond that we apply dave ramsey's basic principles, with a little suze orman thrown in (we follow her advice regarding credit -- dave says no credit, suze says protect your credit). dave says to put away an emergency fund of $1000, and then don't save any more until you have all debt paid off. but we save anyway.

if you'll remember from my budget outline, we actually save 5% and invest 5%. we feel it is wise to do both of those things, but we can't afford to save 10% and invest right now (we do put 10% of my "net" pay into savings). tomorrow i will talk more about investing.

we define "net" as being after our tithe too. so we take jake's take-home pay (the actual amount on his paycheck), subtract the amount we tithe (see yesterday's post for more info), and the amount we're left with is our "net". so multiply that by 5%, and that's how much we save. similarly to yesterday, we had to set a specific amount for this category, since we aim to end up with -0- after we have paid all our "accounts" (see our budget outline). it sure doesn't feel like much on a monthly basis. but we don't touch that money, and it adds up -- slowly, but surely.

once we have transferred the specific amount to our savings account, we have some mini-"accounts" within savings that we keep track of (for separate line item on our budget list, we have a spreadsheet we keep up with). we aim to have certain amounts in each of the following savings categories: emergency home repair, emergency medical, car replacement, and unemployment. so when we are tempted to take money out of savings to buy, say, a new coach purse, it's a pretty big deterrent to see that money coming out of the "car replacement" fund (knowing we desire to NEVER again have a car payment).

i know i didn't explain this very well. so seriously, please ask any questions you may have! hope this has helped :)

tithing

i am not going to attempt to persuade you to begin tithing, or tithe any more or less than you already do. actually, that last phrase was incorrect. "tithe" literally means "a tenth". so if you are a christian, and you desire to tithe, but you only give 2%...well, you're not tithing. but i digress.

jake and i have always tithed, but only recently have we been convicted that we were doing it wrong. we have always gotten a paycheck and given 10% of that paycheck to our local church. but really, we weren't tithing on our income. we were tithing on our take-home. you know the whole "give to God what is God's and to caesar what is caesar's"? well, caesar was getting a whole lot more from us than God was! so we decided to begin tithing on our gross pay. but then we thought "how in the world can we afford to do that?" we had trimmed our budget down so far. but we prayed, and we crunched, and we just decided that we would do it, even if we couldn't see how it could possibly work. and you know what? it works just fine.

because we operate on a zero-based budget (from jake's income), we needed a specific dollar amount to allocate to our tithe. so we looked at the past six months of his pay, chose the highest amount, then rounded up. just to be safe. and that is the dollar amount we give. so yes, technically it's more than 10%. but guess what? we are told to tithe, as christians. we aren't told to only tithe, but we are told to at least tithe.

i challenge you to pray about how He would have you handle your finances. and if you're mad at me and still think i know nothing about you...you're invited to dinner. we'll pull out the checkbook registers. and i will show you what it looks like to not be able to afford to give any more, but do it anyway.

our budget outline

with today's post we begin the nitty gritty. i am trying to keep each day's post as short as possible, so today i will only post our budget outline. in the days to come i will go into more specifics about each category. as always, feel free to ask any questions :) you are welcome to set up your budget exactly like we have ours, but of course you can alter it to fit your family's needs.

jake's income:

• tithe 10% of gross pay
• mortgage
• water/trash (fluctuates, but we do have a specific amount set of the approximate average)
• electricity (we have recently signed up for duke power's equal payment plan - no charge to us, and much easier for planning the amount to allocate here!)
• cell phones ($83 total for us both! i'm proud of that one :) )
• groceries (includes couponing, household items, personal care, etc.)
• car payment
• car insurance (we pay this once a year, but still put back money for it every month)
• life insurance
• taylor's health insurance (thank you, state of nc, for making it basically impossible for us to add me onto jake's plan)
• cable/internet (we cancelled our cable yesterday, but i wanted you to see where this used to go)
• netflix
• savings 5% of net pay ("net" as we consider it is after tithe has been taken out of his paycheck, too)
• investments 5% of net pay
• home improvement - anything over $x (his pay fluctuates month to month, so x = the lowest amount he's gotten paid in the last 6 months)
• gas - jake
• gas - taylor
• car maintenance
• gifts
• christmas (this includes christmas gifts and decor or other celebratory enhancements)
• eat out
• activities
• vacation (we put back as much as we can afford - not much - so hopefully we'll be able to get away occasionally. this category's new for us)
• routine medical care (co-pays, prescriptions, etc)
• clothing NEEDS (we really have all we need. anything we want comes out of any play money we have. so this is literally for when all of our underwear has holes in it and we HAVE to have new ones.)
• beauty (my hair cuts, birchbox, makeup, etc)
• weightlifting (idk what he does with this. gets protein powder and barbells and stuff i guess)
• dolly (vet, grooming, food, etc. we're hoping to keep this as low as possible)

my income:

• tithe 10% of gross pay
• savings 10% of net pay (see "net" definition above)
• jake play money (he uses it to eat lunch out during the week)
• taylor play money (for my manis, obviously)
• student loans: minimums
• extra payment (a specific dollar amount) to the smallest loan

savings (where the money goes when we transfer it to the savings account):

• emergency home repair (air conditioning breaks, water line bursts - i don't even know what that means, whatever. this is for true "we-have-to-do-this-now stuff)
• emergency medical
• car replacement (the goal is to never finance a car again)
• unemployment

wow, this was a lot longer than anticipated. i wanted you to see every single line item. will explain more later. hope it's helped!

our financial goals/philosophy

in order to maintain motivation, i'm going to suggest you create some sort of goal list or mission statement asap. today i will share with you our outlook on it all.

our overall end goal is related to the well-being of our family. we desire to have kind of a lot of kids (compared to the U.S. average; not compared to my ESL students!), and we want me to be able to stay home with them and homeschool, until a certain point anyway. we believe God's command to us is to be fruitful and multiply (obviously, not every Christian in the world feels this way, and we certainly don't pass judgment on others whose beliefs are different from our own). not only that, but we feel that my role as a wife and a mother is to serve my husband, my children, and our home. this is not something my husband is forcing down my throat, to make me subservient to him. it also not something i am forcing on him so i can sit at home all day and do "nothing". we believe this picture is one that can work beautifully, and does for many families, even today.

right now i only work part-time. that is by choice. although we have no children, i do have a husband and a home. i desire to throw myself and my heart into nurturing these things. we think it's beneficial for me to learn how to efficiently manage our family while there are only two of us, so as that number grows it is almost second nature to me. also, i have student loans. my income right now goes solely to pay off my student loans, and to any "extras" we feel the freedom to indulge in right now. for now, we each get roughly equal amounts of "play" money, in addition to paying off my student loans at a little over twice the speed intended by the lenders.

so to sum it all up: we want a million kids. we feel strongly that i should stay home with them, and teach them. we have to be debt-free to do that. we have structured our whole budget so that we live off jake's pay, and mine goes to debt reduction and a little "free" money for us both. it's hard. it's not always fun. but we believe it will all have been more than worth it in the end.

why a budget?

so you only buy stuff on sale and you never overdraft your bank account and you pay off your credit card every month. why in the world would you need a budget? too restricting, and obviously, you're doing fine.

well, are you satisfied with "fine"? or do you want to be in control of your own money? we chose the latter. making a budget is pretty sobering. you write down $50/month for eating out, then look back at your checkbook and see what you actually spent last month was over $150. WHAT!? how?? your family only eats at mcdonald's. for a family of four to eat at mcdonald's it costs at least $15 or so (i'm totally guessing. jake kinda counts as two people, so for our family of "three" it's like $10). if you go through the drive-thru once a week, that's already $60 for the month. and of course you have to go out to eat after church on sunday, and you usually choose mexican or italian. for your family it's about $30 every time. so that's $120 a month. for your family of four to utilize the drive-thru once a week, and eat out after church on sundays, you've already spent $180 on eating out. and you think $50 is enough to budget for that?

the above is just one example. i'm trying to show you that having it all down on paper really makes you see clearly how much you are currently spend on everything. when it's all out there, you can then see where you need to cut back, or even (rarely) where you need to allow for more.

with a budget written down, you can also determine your financial goals and dreams, and plan for those accordingly.

a budget is not restricting; it's freeing. for someone who loves structure - like me - it really helps me to know that yes, we can go to the movies, but we don't have enough in the entertainment category to do popcorn at said movie. and usually i'll choose my own (homemade, better-for-you, more delicious) popcorn and a redbox movie. so just go ahead and determine that you're going to make you a budget. it'll be fun :)

finance-ish blogs i follow

today's post will be easy. i do want to encourage you to begin following every single one of the blogs i am about to mention. i'll try to list them in what i think is the order of importance/applicability (is that a word? we'll say it is).

1. our freaking budget. seriously, their blog is great. they have a little (a lot) more discretionary income than we do, but they are even more determined than we are to live on less while saving saving saving. i would say 100% you have to follow them.

2. loving simple living. this is more about the mindset. go back and read some of the older posts.  lately her posts have been about her life as a minimalist now, but occasionally she issues a "simple living" challenge of some sort. definitely worth following.

3. blissful and domestic. this is the blog of the woman whose family lives on $14,000/year. again, i prefer her older stuff, but she still posts some gems. she also has free, downloadable meal plans and grocery lists. she has posted about how her family lives well and enjoys their life on a minimal income.

side note to everyone reading this who lives near me now: if these people can do what they do, living near much more urban areas, imagine how much better we can do! we are so fortunate, and do not need to take that for granted. i don't know if you all even realize it, but as a "foreigner", i see it so clearly: when i can get my hair cut and colored and eyebrows waxed here for the same price i paid for a dry trim in burlington (not even big compared to other, real cities), where we live is CHEAP. yay for budgeting when it's made so easy for us!

so follow these blogs and get ready to be challenged the next few days. you can do it!

easy homemade dish soap

i am so excited to announce that i've made my first ever homemade cleaning supply!

you can do a google search and come up with a bazillion recipes for homemade dish soap.  i found a super simple, super easy recipe, and wanted to share it here. this recipe was on a couple different sites, but the one i used was this one.

here is what i used:
-1 c liquid castile soap*
-3 tbsp water

*i ordered from dr. bronner's website and got tea tree oil for the antibacterial properties. you can use unscented and add essential oils for the scent.

mix ingredients together in a container. i made one batch to put in my soap pump by the sink, and went ahead and mixed up a double batch that i'm storing in a mason jar for when i need to refill my soap pump.

next time i make some, i will actually probably use a citrusy essential oil for the scent and also to cut grease a little. tea tree oil is fine; it doesn't smell bad, but it doesn't smell amazing either.

and that's it! i dare you to try it.

our real-life minimalist cottage. (just the idea, no pictures yet)

we are currently working on streamlining and simplifying...well, our lives. entonces, i think from now on i will just write short(er) snippets. (sometimes my brain switches back and forth between english and spanish.)

in defining our "style" for our home, and personally for my wardrobe and all, i've become addicted to reading blogs. right now i'm fascinated by the concept of minimalism; however, i LOVE the whole cottage-y shabby farmhouse-y look too. so i am trying to redefine what all of those terms mean for me, because the idea of minimalism and the look of a cottage are usually pretty opposite.

i want nothing in my home that is not useful. if there is something i absolutely adore and can't live without, then sure, i'll keep it. but i'll also use it. take my grandmother's china: i drink my coffee out of those pretty, delicate tea cups every single day. and the antique setee i also inherited from my grandmother?  i love it. and we need enough seating for entertaining. and i do not mind one bit that it gets used.

i love the minimalist idea of paring down your possessions from the 20% you use 80% of the time and the other 80% you use 20% of the time, to just that 20% you love. so we've done that. and are still doing that. i love the cottage-y farmhouse-y look of old things collected over time. so we have some of those things. and we USE them. because that's a little more like real life, don't ya think? of course i'll copy ideas from blogs because there are about 14 million people who are way better at decorating than me. but what i want to do in my home is LIVE...not present a magazine-worthy picture for all who walk through my door. and focus on RELATIONSHIPS...not acquiring so much stuff that i feel more attached to it than people.

so don't judge me when you see bare cabinets in my house. or when you see me actually using vintage and antique pieces. and don't feel uncomfortable using those things with me. people are what make life full and vibrant. and it's so freeing to embrace that truth :)

what's been going on around here...

so, right now i am taking a couple classes at the local community college, i have started working there as an adult esl teacher, i still work part-time at a vineyard as well, i have started teaching sunday school, i volunteer, and i have recently decided to become a minimalist-ish (decluttering galore is happening every day!)... therefore, i have no time. but i wanted to update you on a few things i have gotten a chance to make/buy/rearrange. again, excuse the photography. maybe i should turn off flash? can someone teach me how to turn off flash? eek :/

found this super cute table runner on an etsy shop called shop 24. i have been wanting one, and vowed not to pay $30 and that i would make one instead, but then one day i said ah who cares, i'll spend the $30. 

got this 31 organizing thingy! sort of wish i had gotten a "g" monogrammed on it (i just slapped a sticker up there, which you can almost see sticking out from behind the junk) but oh well. made the little to do lists the other night at a pinterest party - so much fun! the blue one with green letters is for jake, the other is for me. he totally loves it, i'm sure.

moved around the chalkboard clingies today. i've been loving the "family rules" things i've seen all over blogs and pinterest and such, so i decided to write some out. only i called it "house rules" because the fact that we have chalkboard clingies, coupled with the fact that i actually write on them, already seems little kid-ish. and we have no little kids. so this made it look more...grown up?

a few things in this picture. first, i decided i wanted a coat hanger, but cutie (have i mentioned that's what i call my 6'1", 225 lb husband?) sure doesn't like to spend money (yes, i know, the table runner. i bought it without telling him, with some money i saved by going to a cheaper nail place). so i came up with a plan to use some extra wood and an old stick we had - which used to be part of a wind chime - to make it. only cutie wanted the wood stained instead of left plain, and he wanted to put the stick pieces into the wood part instead of nailing them on. so it looks way better than it did in my head! now, the thing hanging on the rightmost hook. i took a can, washed it, wrapped it in this jute ribbon, hot glued it on, hot glued a ribbon around it, and put chalk inside. i had wanted someone to build me a little thing to hold my chalk. but this is a lot cuter and was way quicker and we already had the stuff. also, no new holes in the wall. cutie ABHORS holes in the wall. too bad he married me :/ oh, and i moved one of the chalkboard clingies here.

got this printable from the pinterest party, slapped it in a frame i had, and hung it up (there was already a hole there from where we had something else hung, then i decided i wanted it moved, so i had covered it up with a chalkboard clingy). the grey letters tie in with the silver "mail" part. it just makes me smile :)

ugh stupid flash. this is a set of coasters sitting on my glass coffee table. if you squint and look real close you can see a pale blue/seaglass/minty color damask on white background. this was the project we made at the pinterest party: 4x4 white tiles + scrapbook paper. cute!

found this basket at the habitat store for like $0.02 or however much they cost there. it now holds my dish towels and dishrags.

now that i see the picture, this looks a bit cluttered. my minimalism is supposed to mean less stuff, not more. i guess i will have to part with the too-cute anthropologie mugs that are broken. must.streamline! i want nothing in my house that is not functional. back to the picture. this is our little "bar cart". the "yum" is on a slate cheese board (why oh why did i buy that? it's so adorb though). there's another one of those baskets holding some pretty (and non-functional - the way they are right now anyway) silverware and mini-cupcake liner flowers, and our cloth napkins. and there's our fruit bowl. the theme is supposed to be food. ok, so it could use some work.

bought some canvases the other day on sale at michael's (going into "the city" sure is expensive! too many temptations...), along with the jute ribbon and the cute ribbon. was bored at home and came up with these. cutie has yet to hang them (they will require new holes).

another habitat store find. (also, plungers are really ugly, you know?)

we now officially hang everything to dry except sheets and towels. mainly because we only have these two drying racks. i've been asking for a clothesline, so maybe one day i'll get one. not looking forward to the crunchy towels, but our wallets and our world are going to love the energy savings!

our guest room officially looks like a guest room now (minus the drying clothes)! no more having stuff just sitting there for whenever we use it as a nursery. the breaking point was when my parents stayed with us and draped a beach towel over the curtain rod because there was no curtain. can you say tack-AY! so i had to do something. made the bed pretty, added a throw at the foot, moved the living room rug in here, added a lamp, and made a pillow from a beautiful kitchen towel our wedding photographer gave us (it was too pretty to use and potentially mess up!). in the picture of the drying clothes you can see that we put a pillow cover on the pillow in the chair, to tie it in to the brown and cream/white of the rest of the room. i also added a little pillow from the habitat store. (ignore the junk in the corner of this picture.)

so that's about it! not that i think my life so exciting that you've missed updates. but maybe something i say sometime will encourage you to change or refresh something in your life or home. 

and i sure can't wait until school is out. maybe then i'll have some time to breathe and write about something you actually care about :)

jake the great

because my husband is so wonderful, i'm going to share with you a speech i wrote about him. ignore the poor writing; the point here is that he is an amazing man. of course for the speech i may have exaggerated enhanced a few things. but the story is pretty accurate. enjoy :)

My best friend is my sweet husband Jake. I promise this won’t be a sappy love story; Jake really is my inspiration. From the night we met, he has changed my life.

            When I walked into Village Tavern on January 8, 2011, all I was thinking about was enjoying a night out with my girlfriends. Little did I know, I had been spotted. About an hour later, as our friends were shamelessly flirting with each other, Jake and I struck up a conversation.

            We all ended up going to Green Street in downtown Greensboro later that night. When we got to the door, we were informed that it was Latino Night. We were the only six white people there. Throughout the night Jake would show up at convenient times to save me from unwanted dance partners. He would just stand there, and the floor around me would clear out. That’s when I fell in love.

            On our first real date, I was so excited, I was literally bouncing up and down in the seat of the car. But I looked over and noticed that Jake wasn’t smiling. I asked him, “Are you not happy?” He wondered why I was asking. “Because you’re not smiling.” And with a straight face he looked at me and said, “This is my happy face.”

            The more I got to know Jake, the more impressed I was with this simple, unassuming man. Despite losing the (first) love of his life to heart disease at the tender age of 21, Jake still had the courage to fall in love again. When he proposed, Jake merely showed me the ring in an open box. Of course I told him I wouldn’t answer until he asked the question. But that’s just him – my man of very few words.

            Jake has shown me how special it can be to just be. The more I’ve been around him, the less I’ve felt the need to fill up every second with mindless chatter. Contentment doesn’t have to come from a life full of crazy excitement. I never thought I could be the kind of person who would say this, but: our modest life, in this beautiful place, is my dream.

            Though he loves sports, Jake stopped playing them halfway through high school so he could start working. Over the years he saved close to half of everything he earned. So when it came time for us to buy and renovate our home last March, Jake was able to make a substantial down payment. This means our house payment is less than anything we would have been able to find to rent. As someone who enjoyed instant gratification all of my adult life, this mindset has taught me so much. We now save 10% of everything we make, only use cash, and are able to live very comfortably on an income well below that of many of our peers.

            Before we got married, I lived with my parents. Translation: I never cooked. Jake, on the other hand, has lived alone, and has always worked with meat. As a new bride, of course I wanted to be the perfect wife. The first meal I prepared – or, ok, maybe the first few – the meat didn’t quite get cooked all the way. Though Jake likes sushi, he wasn’t impressed. But he never said anything. He would cautiously cut into the chicken or steak…or fish…or hamburger, and subtly check the color. If it was too pink, he would quietly take both our plates and finish cooking. I was always so embarrassed, and may have even shed a few tears. But after a few weeks of Jake’s patient and welcome help, I got better. One night about a month ago when he said “You need to give my mama this recipe,” I knew I had arrived!

            Jake has changed a lot too since we got married. In the past eight months, he has put on 50 pounds. Of muscle. He has been training to compete in powerlifting meets. I so admire his perseverance. Regardless of how he feels, Jake has never once missed a workout. I, on the other hand, have rarely kept up with working out.

            Jake has a quiet strength. He is truly my inspiration – not necessarily because of anything in particular that he does, but because of who he is, and the way he lives his life, every day. In every way, he will always be the sexiest man alive to me.

frugal fabulosity

so one of the reasons i started this blog (yes, there are reasons; i don't intend to bore you with the ins and outs of my daily life) is because i think i am somewhat different from other money-saving, intensely frugal bloggers in this: it is not in my nature to want to save money or be green or make my own things. it is in my nature to want to dress like i walked off a fashion runway, wearing high-end makeup and smelling of the best roses money can buy. we're not just talking i-want-to-wear-trendy-clothes. we're talking haute couture here. that is what i waaaaaaaant. bad. but more than anything else, i want to be an excellent wife and mother. so i am setting out to discover how i can look and feel as amazing as that ideal image of myself in my head, while saving major bucks and simplifying my life a bit.

you've probably noticed by now that i really like having my nails done. i don't necessarily enjoy the process of getting my nails done, but rather the end result of having them done. my first big girl job was selling gorgeous, very very nice jewelry. when i walk into a jewelry store, if your nails don't look good, i will not buy anything from you. to me, the way you look speaks of the jewelry. in a store with truly high quality jewelry, even the salespeople are proud of that (and the store probably makes enough to pay them enough to keep up their appearance), and that is reflected in the way they present themselves to their customers. but in general, i feel like i look so much more polished with my nails done -- even if i'm wearing sweats and no makeup. so today i want to share what i've come up with so far to keep my nails looking good without spending much money at all.

i have a lot of nail polish from back when $8-$10 per bottle was nothing to me (or so i thought), and several free bottles from couponing. so no need to spend money there. i prefer pink nails, on the paler side, which happens to be the type of color that doesn't show chips as badly -- thereby lengthening the life of your manicure. i have a few tools that the normal person may not have in their cabinet, but these are easily and cheaply found at sally's or somewhere like that. so here are the steps i take:

1. scrape feet with ped egg (follow their instructions). pretty disgusting, and sure, i'd rather someone else do this. but my labor is free for myself.
2. put a good lotion/cream all over feet (you can get special foot creams or just use the best stuff you have)
3. remove all existing polish -- use a q-tip to get around edges
4. push back cuticles
5. use a cuticle oil. put it on a cotton ball and rub around edges of nails. i usually follow up with a dry cotton ball to absorb excess moisture
6. buff nails (i use a file that has been used so much it won't file well anymore -- this could be bad advice, not sure; i also have one of those four sided thingies, so i use the sides in order until my nails aren't rough anymore, but aren't quite shiny yet)
7. trim nails (shorter nails get in the way less, meaning less likelihood to chip polish)
8. file nails
9.  use a base coat. for my fingernails, i use a clear strengthener polish
10. wait a few minutes, then paint the first coat of color (i usually paint my nails while watching tv. so i will paint a coat when the commercial break starts, then wait til the next commercial break to paint the next coat)
11. paint a second coat of color, and get some on the edge of the fingernail, the part that is perpendicular to the flat surface of the nail (this, to me, makes it look more like you got your nails done and less like you painted them yourself. you will get some on your skin unless you're really talented, but don't worry about that now)
12. paint a top coat
13. after a few minutes, take a q-tip dipped in polish remover and go around your nails on your skin. this will get off the polish from when you painted the edges. and if you're like me, you didn't paint inside the lines anywhere else either
14. do not do anything with your hands for AT LEAST an hour! (so maybe you should do this process when you're catching up on several shows at once)
15. i usually take a shower before i go anywhere. this helps to get any remaining polish off my skin (i'm really very bad at painting)

hope this has helped! also, i promise i will work on making my posts shorter. good night :)

use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without.

the big man (i think i might start calling my husband that. he is HUGE.) and i are of the rare breed who believe that you do NOT always have to have a car payment and house payment. GASP! i know. why would anyone in their right mind want to get out of debt and only answer to themselves and God regarding their money? soo weird. we currently do have both of those things, although one of our cars is paid for.

so here we were, chugging along, living comfortably below our means and paying more than the minimum on our smallest debt (my student loans. pure stupidity. that's a whole other story.), when one day it dawned on us -- we could still be doing MORE. so as of this weekend, we have begun re-evaluating our budget and what we see as "necessities". i think i will share our budget with you so you can see what we have come up with so far, and then i will go along and explain. first i'll share with you the catalyst for our new mindset: the family that lives on $14,000 a year. we figured if a family of four can live on that amount, a family of two has no reason not to be able to live on over double that. the difference? they have no debt. NONE.

one more thing before my big reveal. we do have an end goal for all of this. when we have children, we would love for me to be able to (at least part time) stay home with them (currently i am in the perfect place to be able to do that -- so if you know us personally and we haven't explained before, this is why i'm not really looking to change my work situation; we are praying for God's timing on a baby, and we don't know if that will be five years from now or nine months from now. anyway). we are not making a judgment on other people who choose to do otherwise. this is just important to us. we know ahead of time that our lives will not look like the lives of our friends who both work and have children. but we are ok with that. and we are going to do all we can in the meantime to set ourselves up for success. warning: this budget may seem extreme to some. it may seem like we are too strict, or not strict enough. your suggestions are most definitely welcome! especially if you have had experience with something similar. if not...still feel free to suggest, but just know we have thoroughly discussed and practiced (most of) this. without further ado...

1-tithe: 10% it's commanded in the Bible, so if you are a follower of the Bible, this is set in stone. period.

2-house payment: $440

3-emergency fund: 5% this goes into our liquid savings account. after putting the down payment on the house, that account has shrunk pretty significantly :/ but we are working to build it back up

4-i.r.a.: 5% regardless of how you choose to invest...this is how we do it. you'll notice that this plus the emergency fund allotment equal 10%. our basic budget is 10-10-80. 10% tithe, 10% savings, 80% everything else. it was important to us to start investing whatever small amount we can now, while we are young.

5-electricity: $95 we are actually looking into duke power's equal monthly payment plan so we can more easily budget for this. for those of you who don't know (as i didn't until like last week), this bill is higher in summer and winter and lower in spring and fall

6-water & trash: $55

7-cell phones: $81 as i think i've mentioned before, we both have no contract plans. jake's covers everything he wants/needs. i actually have unlimited talk, text, data, on an android phone, for $45/mth. i was very wary of things like this before i tried it...now i think we'd be crazy to do it any other way. we are thinking about dropping mine to a limited plan though, just to free up a few extra dollars every month

8-cable/internet: $92 ugh ugh ugh. we are trying to figure out how to get basic cable and internet, or even just internet somewhere else and do netflix or something. but time warner cable must know that and therefore not pick up when we've been on hold for.ev.er. so this amount will be dropping soon. hopefully.

9-car payment: $260 the bill is for like $250 something but we round it up. makes us feel like we are making headway. don't really know if that's accurate or not, but we do it.

   --taylor health insurance: $120 my husband works for the state. for me to be on his insurance would cost $600/mth. so we buy the super duper saver version from blue cross blue shield. thankfully i'm pretty healthy. 

1-groceries $200 we use cash for this. i am about to embark on my first ever two-week's worth grocery shopping trip, in an effort to work my way up to once a month shopping. we will see how it goes.

1-couponing $20 if you've been paying attention to previous blog posts you will notice this is a little different. i used to buy groceries, then whatever i had leftover i would use to coupon, and put any overage on the debit card. well, we can't truly afford it if we don't have cash for it, now can we? so we adjusted some things and gave me this couponing budget. before we made this adjustment i did one last of those old coupon runs, and i will use it as an example to show you how this amount will really go further. i went to rite aid and bought $20 worth of face cream. i got $20 back in their +up rewards. so essentially the face cream was free, and i still have $20 to spend (albeit only at rite aid). so $20 will buy more than just $20 worth of products. this also limits me, though, so i don't get all excited over a deal and buy a million of something.

1-gas - taylor $120 this is a new amount for us. it will mean me being very deliberate about when and where i drive. if i want to go visit my mother in law at the bank, i will walk. no big deal (nbd? i guess that's how you say it now). i am in school in dobson this semester so we will have to supplement this amount a little. but other than that...i work part time, and with this new grocery shopping plan, i really don't need to go much of anywhere.

1-gas - jake $40 he has to make this last a whole month. just kidding. he gets reimbursed for his gas for work; he just has to drive to and from wilkesboro without reimbursement. this will be our first time trying giving him a specific amount so we will see how it goes.

1-savings (this will be life insurance allocation when we get it): $76 self-explanatory. we wanted to go ahead and work the life insurance amount into the budget so we wouldn't go into shock and think the world would end when the time came to start paying that. so in the meantime we are just building up our savings a little more

1- home improvement: anything over regular amount weird wording. i copied and pasted this from our actual budget document, but didn't want to share exactly how much we bring home. if you're math-y, by all means, figure it out. i just thought it would be tacky to advertise. anyway. home improvement money comes from any amount jake brings home above what we have budgeted for. sorry dave ramsey, it may be a little too generic. oh well.

  -student loans $365 eek. this is the really embarrassing part. so here's the deal. my parents said "x is what we are willing/able to pay for your college. do with it what you will." which would have been great had i been a normal person. but instead i decided i had to go to private colleges. i live in a very rural area. my degree is in biblical studies. many foolish decisions along the way. but no need to dwell on what i could have done differently. the fact is, they're there, and i will pay them off. yes, i said i. because i do not think it would be anywhere near fair for jake to work his butt off, especially if we have kids and i stay home with them, in order to pay for my education that i am not using. this is why i will not be fully staying at home with our kids. this, by the way, is way over the minimum payments; this is the total amount we are putting towards them to pay them down. as we free up money in other areas, we can make this amount higher, in order to pay them off quicker.

4-yoga $20 this is the average amount it will cost me. my yoga class is once a week, but every few weeks jake and i have a commitment, so i can't go every week. by the way, if you live near elkin, nc, and are interested, contact me. my sweet hippie friend who knows everything about green and homemade teaches it, and kindly puts up with my never-ending questions about the aforementioned topics.

5-beauty $20 ($10 auto draft birchbox) this basically is enough for me to get my hair trimmed every other month. i'm planning on birchbox (and maybe some couponing) to cover makeup and hair products, etc. there is no nail money figured in here...very sad. but maybe my sweet husband will surprise me every now and then ;)

6-gifts $20 this is a tough one. we have basically decided that no gift we buy will go over $20, so that covers birthdays for us and our family and all that. i think this will work out fine. the problem will be christmas. so this may have to change. in general i do try to stock up on some gift items whenever i can, and couponing stockpiles are great for this too. if you're either of my brothers reading this, just know we can't spoil you anymore :) ha.

7-eating out $30 woah! this is crazy! i know. this basically allows for a few options. we can save it up and eat a nice (ish) dinner out once a month. or a semi-nice dinner out twice a month. or fast food every week. the goal here is to stop us from running to bojangle's or theo's just because i didn't feel like cooking. part of my new grocery plan is meal planning for the entire month. we could totally rearrange some things and afford applebee's or whatever every week. but we're choosing not to; it is more important to us to get out of debt (some people use this word to refer only to "consumer debt", which we have none of. we use it to refer to any money we owe anyone, at all). i have noticed several frugal tips-y places suggesting to cut out eating out altogether. now THAT is crazy. sure $30/month would go a long way to helping us get out of debt faster. but eating out can be something we look forward to now, like a treat. and for my sanity, with the new tighter gas budget, i will need to just get out some.

8-entertainment $20 we realized we weren't really using what we used to budget for this. we rarely go to the movies. occasionally we go to a little downtown pub with our friends. we figured we go "out" (to either one of those places) about once a month. and this amount easily covers that.

9-weightlifting $20 our basement rivals gold's gym, or wherever you may go. this category is a bit misleading. but it basically goes toward protein powder, or any other equipment/accessories (too girly of a word?) jake may feel the need to buy. if you know anything about this, you know that cheap protein powder is like $20 and will last for two weeks. so this is not intended to keep him fully loaded on the stuff. for goodness' sake, that's why i have 7 dozen eggs in my fridge right now. it just so works out that we get equal amounts for our exercising desires.

1-car insurance (deposit into savings) $80 we do pay this annually - saving us money - but it still needs to be budgeted for.

ook, so all of that was way personal. sorry if that offends anyone? as i've been reading other people's blogs about frugality, i've noticed that none of them write out a sample budget, like their own, to show how it can be done. so i figured hey, why not? hope this has been helpful, and i truly would love to hear your suggestions or questions.

aas always, sorry for the long post. and as always, thanks for reading :) love.

couponing 101

let me just say first that i am by no means an expert on this subject. all i know is: we used to spend over $100/week on groceries/cleaning and laundry supplies/shower stuff/cosmetics/etc. now we spend $50. this includes three gallons of milk, two dozen eggs, and meat with EVERY meal (seriously, if i say "hey jake let's have soup and sandwiches for supper" he says "ok with what meat?"). so here is what to know:

(sorry for the lame picture. wanted to make this more than just a million paragraphs)

1. subscribe to krazy coupon lady. you will get daily emails. read them. click on each and every link you think might be something that would benefit you, and read through them. as you get used to this, you will know which links are most important to you, and you won't need to click on as many. do this daily.

2. there are two main ways to organize your coupons. i made a binder using the template offered on krazy coupon lady. i got baseball card thingies, which are like page protectors but with slots that will hold baseball cards, so like eight to a page. i think there are actually coupon ones now. the other way is less time consuming. file inserts (smart source, red plum, and proctor and gamble) and be sure to label the date of the newspaper in which they came. this saves you having to clip all the coupons you think you might need. personally, we don't even subscribe to the newspaper. on the sundays we remember to, we will buy one (but the coupons aren't always in there!), but mostly people (our moms and grandmas) give them to me. therefore, the insert method wouldn't really work for me, as i am never sure when exactly they came out, and i don't necessarily get them every week.

3. get rewards cards! for every single store you go into, sign up for whatever rewards plan they have. even if you do nothing else, this will save you easily $100/year.

4. the stores i go to frequently are cvs, walgreens, and rite aid. sometimes i will coupon at walmart or even target if i know i will be near one. but the drugstores are my main stops.

5. basically, i look for krazy coupon lady's list of all the coupon deals at those particular stores each week. they put a little symbol beside the deals that are too good to pass up, and those are the ones i participate in, provided i have the coupons. a lot of them have links to printable coupons too. i write down my list for each store on a separate piece of paper, and paper clip my coupons to the appropriate list. under each item i will write whether or not i have a coupon for it, if it's on sale or a bogo deal, and if i will be earning rewards dollars or points for it. this helps me to double check each item when i get to the store, to ensure i am purchasing the right item for the deal. also, i can check my receipt to be sure i got the rewards i should have.

when i first decided i wanted to try couponing, literally all i did was go to the kcl website and click on a bunch of tabs to kind of figure out what was going on. i'm sure i haven't covered everything in this post, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

a note about my stockpile: we have shelving units in our basement, and i have two of them full of stuff. rarely do i get deals on food, though. mostly i have tons of shampoo, laundry detergent, feminine hygiene items, etc. but this enables me to spend our grocery money on actual food. my couponing money comes out of our grocery budget too, but it's a lot better to spend $10/week on deals to add to our stockpile than $10/week on toilet paper that i will have to buy again soon. now that our stockpile is built up a bit, i only take advantage of deals that make the item free or if i know we are running low on that item.

(not my stockpile. just googled for a picture. mine is pretty similar though)

there is definitely a high you get when you score a great deal. and you get pretty down when you get to the store and see some other couponer has cleared the shelves of a particular item you were hoping to stock up on! but i always try to be grateful for those times too, and maybe spend the $7 i was going to use to get 10 shampoos on some fresh flowers or something else fun.

i hope this helps anyone interested in beginning on this journey. and if you're a little skeptical about whether or not you want to get into all this...well, not sure i can help you. look into it, do your own research, and decide. for us, i didn't really have much choice. our budget is so tight we really can't afford not to do this. but to be completely honest (i started smiling as soon as i started typing this sentence!), i LOVE living simply, and on less. it just feels right. :)