It's about more than just free toothpaste

Being frugal and using coupons can start as a "game"....a trick to see how much you can get for so little.  But stick with it and after a while that mindset that says "There is just no WAY I am paying more than $.80 for a box of Cocoa Puffs" starts to spill over in to every other part of your life.

(Warning - brutal honesty and possibly TMI to follow)

I became of legal age when I was 18; old enough to buy beer (oh happy day!) when I was 21; we bought our house when I was 27; I was a mother at age 32 and a mother of three by age 37.

But I didn't actually grow up until I was just shy of 38 years old.

I always worked.  I always had money.  When we bought our house we had two incomes, a very low mortgage and no kids.  We were both maxxing out our 401K and Employee Stock Purchase plans at work, and yet we still had a comfortable amount of disposable income....and we went through money like shi-....ummm...something that goes through a goose very quickly.

Fast forward to April 30th, 2001....the day my paychecks stopped because I quit work to be a stay-at-home mom upon the birth of my son.  Our income was cut by slightly more than half.  Our expenses pretty much stayed the same, since I had been commuting almost an hour each way to work and buying lunch almost every day (cutting those expenses covered diapers, clothes etc).  We were putting things on credit cards and slowly selling our stock that we had accumulated to make ends meet.

And the goose still had diarrhea.

Then one day we were out of stock and I realized that if something didn't change, I was going to have to go back to work.  Not that there is anything wrong with being a working mother...it's just not anything I want to do until all 3 of my children are in full-day school (and even then, I only want to work while they are at school).

We had tried to make a budget before...but I always blew it (yep - with the exception of a few big ticket electronics that Brad just HAD to have, it was me who was spending all the money.  I was a bored SAHM who entertained herself at the mall).  And then I found a budget spreadsheet on the Internet (try this one  I found about a week ago - It's my new favorite, especially since I couldn't create an Excel Spreadsheet if you held a gun to my head) and really sat down and honestly took at look at our income and expenditures.  My reaction?  "Oh <that thing which goes through a goose very quickly>!!!!!!"

The first thing I did was get REAL serious about my couponing.  It took almost a year, but I have now gone from spending a minimum of $150 each week to $20-$45 per week..and that includes toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning products...pretty much everything but diapers.  More importantly, every penny that I have saved in groceries has gone towards our credit card debt and when my husband gets his semi-annual bonus next month, we will no longer have any credit card balance. 

And then stage 2 can start....beginning to build at least 6 months of emergency savings so that if something horrible DOES happen, we can get through it without having to dip in to our 401Ks

Taking David Ramsay's advice (thank you MoneySavingMom for "turning me on" to him), EVERY PENNY that comes in to our house will have a name....be it for the mortgage, diapers or just extra towards the credit card that month.  It took a while, but I finally have Brad ready to take our credit and debit cards out of our wallet and start using the "envelope system" in our house for our monthly non-mortgage, non-utilities and car payment expenses.  We've been unofficially doing this almost a year, but now that Brad has seen how sacred I keep the "grocery kitty", he is ready to try it for everything else. 

So why am I telling you all this?  Because I know that, with the economy in the tank the way it is now, there are likely a few of you who are relatively new to this whole couponing/living frugally thing.  And I just want you to know that it IS a process.  That I was just as frivolous as the next person with money (and I still have more than my share of moments)

Saving a few dollars on groceries became more than just a game.  It spilled over in to the rest of my life.  And life has been better ever since that happened.