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. :)

good tidings

you don't want these to be the only things you bring this year! if you're still looking for gifts these last few days before christmas, just wanted to share a few ideas. some of these are handmade, so you might not have as much to choose from...but hopefully they will have something in stock that will work for you:

1. the bluebird's feather is an etsy shop belonging to my friend jessica. she makes adorable scarves and headbands and things. you can facebook message her to see what she still has available! thebluebirdsfeather

2. lavender anne's belongs to another of my friends, kelly. she makes all sorts of bath goodies. LavenderAnnes

3. uncommon goods is a website i discovered about 5 minutes ago while doing some searching on my own. it's pretty neat. uncommongoods

hope these help!

exercise...

...your right to vote! today is oh-so-important. and if you live in a swing state, like north carolina, your vote is even more important.

so if you haven't already, give yourself a crash course on who is running, and what their stands are on all the issues. pay close attention to the issues you feel are most important to you, but don't overlook the others. you can do this! the internet is a beautiful thing. but stick to the candidate's or the party's website, to be sure you're getting correct information. this is a powerful right you have.

and as a side note, always remember that we live in the land of the free, because of the brave. (i'll never skip out on an opportunity to thank our service members, including my baby brother.)

love story

since the last several posts have not exactly been the most...fun, i decided to entertain you a little (hopefully). here i'm going to share with you mine and my husband's love story. i'm sure i might forget to include something, so if you happen to have any questions, feel free to comment and i'll gladly answer :)

once upon a time, a long long time ago, jake and i lived a long ways apart and didn't know each other. we both had numerous girlfriends/boyfriends (which, in hindsight, is NOT a good idea - i do not promote dating around. it hurts, and is a waste of time. anyway...). in particular, jake dated a very special girl. she passed away at far too young an age. i was engaged a few years ago. it was not right. we both had those very serious relationships that ended tragically, albeit very differently. fast forward to january 8, 2011. i needed a girl's night, and so went to greensboro with a couple of friends to eat and go dancin'. apparently, when i walked in, a certain someone had his eye on me. long story made a little shorter: jake and his friends ended up chatting with me and my friends. we all went downtown together. jake and i exchanged phone numbers that night, talked for over an hour on the phone every night that week, then he came to take me on a real date.

january 23, 2011: jake asked me to be his girl.

january 14, 2012: my sweet now-husband - man of few words as he is - simply said he wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of his life with me.

june 9, 2012: i changed my last name.

pinching pennies: cash

here are some more practical tips on how to save money. this is going to involve the things you use cash for (your envelopes).

• entertainment. we are still working on this, but it's been a fun adventure. some of the couponing blogs i subscribe to will give you codes to get a free redbox movie every now and then, and we never pass that up. we tend to hang out with our friends a lot, just over at someone's house; people are so much more important than things anyway. we also are trying to find fun, free, local entertainment. one example is: this august our library showed a free"hollywood noir" movie every monday night. so what if we were the only ones there? we enjoyed it. get creative with this!
• groceries. coupons!!! our grocery budget is supposed to cover not only food, but cleaning and health and beauty supplies as well. not to mention my mountain man husband eats more than anyone else ever in the universe! we could not afford to NOT use coupons. see the info on blogs i subscribe to for links.
• clothing. for one, we just don't go out and buy clothes. this envelope for us is for true needs. we have a goodwill, and thanks to a friend i have now been introduced to a couple of good consignment stores in our area. there is simply no reason to pay full price, or even retail sale price, for clothes.
• beauty. i paint my own nails now. this is the absolute hardest part for me, hands down. but i'll live. every now and then, if i get a little bonus or if we happen to have a little extra money, i might splurge. but honestly it's not a necessity.
• gas. we both have fuel-efficient cars. and don't make unnecessary trips to the store (because you ran out of toothpaste, for example -- couponing helps you avoid this!).

i hope these have been helpful. i'd love to hear ways some of you have cut back on your expenses!

pinching pennies: bills

as you are implementing your large-scale money makeover, i thought it might be helpful to give you some practical ideas on how to save money in different areas of your budget. here are ways that we are cutting back, even though though some may seem insignificant or - even worse - HARD:

• house payment. we bought a small house, got a great deal, and put a lot down. our house is not quite 1300 square feet, which is perfect for the two of us - but we have a full basement that we could finish should we desire to become duggar-esque (as my husband has hinted at having an interest in).
• electricity. our thermostat is set on 74 during the summer; we keep the curtains drawn and ceiling fans on. thermostat is at 65 during the winter; we keep the curtains open and snuggle. turn off appliances when not in use. use a clothesline.
• water. take showers instead of baths. hand-wash dishes more than using the dishwasher. only shower if you need it (this one sounds gross, i know. but i work part-time, on the weekends, so i really do not do all that much to get dirty during the week; wal-mart doesn't need me freshly bathed to do my grocery shopping. so it's not really a matter of living with being dirty, but rather a matter of logical cut-backs).
• trash. compost! 
• cell phones. go no-contract. for some of you, you feel this is a fate worse than death. it is not. having to go into hiding underground because you can't pay your bills is way worse. i think t-mobile has the iphone so you'll live. you can keep your old phone number. jake doesn't care at all about phones so his is a flip phone. i'll admit i'm a little more vain than that - i actually want to be able to use the internet - so i did recently get an android. we pay a total of $80/month for me to have unlimited talk/text/data and him to have whatever he needs. so worth it!
• cable. to be honest, we haven't really had to cut back in this area at all. where we live, everything is relatively inexpensive. we do have friends who have cancelled their cable and subscribe to netflix and hulu plus, and they have a little box thingy that picks up local channels (when we tried the box, however, we got a very static-y one channel). i think they pay a ridiculously low total of around $15/month.
• car payment. for one, his car is paid off. we both drive extremely reliable, family cars (a toyota corolla and honda accord) that we fully intend to drive into the ground. and my car payment is pretty low.
• car insurance. before we got married, i just walked into a local office for a quote, and cut my car insurance rate in half. after we got married, we combined ours, and our homeowners, and it's all extremely affordable. so just look around!

you can do this! there will be more tips next post, but this one is already long enough. and baby steps are the least painful way to take all of this on, anyway. good luck!

credit & finances 102

first of all, i have to give a shout-out. my sweet husband had a little birthday get-together for me over the weekend. after we ate, he and his brother tried to start a fire in out firepit...unsuccessfully. their 10-year-old cousin, JACE MCKINLEY HAYNES, suggested they try newspaper. after exhausting all other options, they tried newspaper. it worked. so thank you, jace, for making my birthday party a success :) i owe you a big ol' sloppy kiss! (and sorry to report there are still no plans for sports to appear anywhere on this blog)

and now back to the "fun" stuff...

1. if step 2 in the previous post did not apply to you because you have no credit cards (and never have), you may have patted yourself on the back. not so fast. right now i'm telling you to get a credit card. do not get a store card, like a gap card or a target card. go to your bank and sign up for a credit card. you have to have credit to buy a house. so get a credit card, go fill up your car with gas, and immediately go home and pay the bill online. you may do this once a month if you think you can, but ONLY if you immediately pay the bill.

2. make a budget. write down every single thing you pay for monthly, or even yearly (for this, figure out the amount you need to put back monthly). write down your bills first, then the flexible things. make sure the total of what you pay monthly is EQUAL TO what you make. if it's more than what you make, then guess what, cable becomes a "flexible" rather than a "bill" - cut it back to what you can actually afford. be sure to include amounts you're paying toward debt. which leads me to...

3. attack your debt! write out the minimum payments for each. for that smallest debt, see if there is any room in your budget to sacrifice something in order to pay double the minimum. for example, if you can get your hair done every 8 weeks instead of every 6, that gives you a little extra money - which you can put toward the debt. when you get that smallest one paid off, move to the next smallest; add what you were previously paying to the smallest debt (which you have at this point paid off) to the next smallest's minimum. keep snowballing these until everything is paid off. i say this like it'll happen next week. it won't. this will take a really long time. but you feel so great paying things off along the way! (and, if your situation changes, you have a little extra money freed up in your monthly budget to where you could go back to paying just the minimums on your debt, only now there are less to pay that on)

4. apply what you've learned from both credit & finances posts. when you feel comfortable with your new money practices - say, after maybe 6 months or so - go see a financial advisor. you do not have to have tons of money to do this. he will be able to help you see more long-term, and he may have some additional tips that (gasp) i may not even know about. this step in particular will be a very empowering one. you will feel like you really have a grasp on where you are, and where you're going, financially. it may take a while, but it will be so worth it.

and enjoy this! the rest of your peers are likely living a life they can't afford. they will leave their heirs nothing, or worse - debt. live within your means not only for your posterity, but for yourself. you will not have to worry about what you owe who (or whom?), or have to scrape by to pay the minimums on things you truly can't afford. this is such a freeing way to live :)