Small Town Savings

Image by J. Stephen Conn via Flickr

I've written before about struggling to stay frugal after moving here to Podunk. With no CVS, no Walmart, Kroger, and no double coupons...well it has been hard to adjust. Amy, from Amy Loves It wrote a great guest post at Keeping the Kingdom First about how to save money while living in a small town. It's full of great tips for all of us who have the choice of a dollar store or the one grocery store in town. Go check it out!

Our Favorite Frugal Breakfast

Now that the kids are home for summer break, our food consumption has gone up. Both kids had been eating breakfast and lunch at school, so feeding them at home is putting a pinch on our pocket book. By cooking from scratch I have come up with some frugal breakfast solutions. Honestly it's more common sense than anything else. After all, muffins cost much less to make than bacon and eggs. Here are some of our favorite frugal breakfast.

Muffins ~ We love muffins! Oatmeal, apple spice, carrot & raisin, pumpkin, banana, the possibilities are endless. It is easy to find muffin recipes to suit every taste.

Cinnamon toast ~ This with a nice cold glass of milk is one of my kids' favorite breakfast. It's a snap to make and doesn't cost much.

Pancakes and Waffles ~ Both of these are frugal when made from scratch. Whip them up in bulk, then freeze for later use. That way you have homemade toaster waffles at your fingertips.

Kolaches ~ These are one of Dan's favorite breakfast. He would often stop and buy them on the way to work. Making them at home and stocking them in the freezer is a much cheaper way for him to enjoy these savory delights.

Breakfast Burritos ~ This is probably my favorite breakfast. We often pick these up on the weekends at a local taco shop, but making them at home is much more budget friendly. You can let your imagination run wild with these and create your own special burrito. I am a potato ham and cheese girl myself. You can even freeze breakfast burritos to have a handy breakfast ready and waiting.

Coffee Cake or Quick Breads ~ On Sunday mornings we often enjoy something like a coffee cake or strawberry bread. They are so good! The kids think they are getting a special treat, having sweets for breakfast.

These are just some of the frugal breakfast we do. You can save quite a bit of money by just not eating breakfast out, staying away from quick fix foods, and cooking/baking from scratch. It takes a little more time, but when done in bulk can work out to be quite convenient. What are some of your family's favorite breakfast?

Ditching Convenience

photo by MontanaRaven

Convenience foods, they were my best friend back in the early days of my marriage. It started with my complete inability to cook, then just got worse when I was sentenced to months of bed rest with pregnancy complications. Confined to my bed, juice boxes, tiny boxes of raisins, and ever bar under the sun became my best friends. Any meals I actually cooked involved a helper, something boxed, or came out of a bag.

I vividly remember my grandparents coming to visit when Tristen was born. My sweet grandmother who made everything from scratch thought my Tuna Helper was the bomb! She was completely amazed that a box could help you make a yummy tuna casserole. At the time I thought she was just being polite, I so sucked at cooking back then. And this was coming from the woman who never used a convenience food of any type in her life! But when my wonderful Nanny was moved into a nursing home, we found boxes of every variety of Tuna Helper in her cupboards. Guess she really did like it!

Anyway, these foods are convenient, but most times are not cost effective, especially when you are paying full price.. I will say that with coupons you can often pick mixes, helpers, pastas, and well pretty much any type of quick food you can imagine for mere pennies if not for free. We would have them occasionally, hen I got them for a little of nothing. That is one thing the kids loved when I started couponing, suddenly mom was bringing home the expensive treats she always says no to. They had no idea that I had slashed our grocery bill and got these treats for a steal!

Since moving to Podunk, unless I go out of town to shop, I don't get great deals any more. This has forced me to better economize. Our ever present sodas have been replaced with tea. Juice boxes have morphed into juice made from frozen concentrate . We make our own peanut butter and crackers instead of buying them in packages. Lunch box snack cakes have been given up for homemade cookies. And the great part is that we really don't miss the "convenience" all that much. Today we baked the world's simplest peanut butter cookies to do in DH's lunch box and to serve as afternoon snacks. Spending quality time with my kids is a joy, one that a box of Ding Dongs can never replace.

So, I urge you to think about where you can cut cost by ditching convenience. Baking your own snacks, changing the way you do beverages, soups from scratch rather than cans, taking two minutes to cube some cheese instead of buying it already done, these are all things we've started doing. It make take just a touch of time, but it saves us real money. Think about what your family eats and I am sure you will find ways to save some cash.

Getting Our Priorities Straight

I have been thinking a lot lately about money and frugal living. When I concentrated solely on reducing our spending and living a more frugal, simple life I think we were in much better financial shape. But, when we moved here to Podunk, my focus changed. The coupon deal opportunities here are few and far between and I was convinced that it was really difficult to save money and spend less on groceries considering my limited shopping opportunities. I switched my focus to trying to bring in more money. My thinking was that what I could earn would make up for the extra money we "needed" to spend on expenses.

This was not such a well thought out plan. It seems the more money we have, the more we spend. I had fallen off the frugal bandwagon! I was bringing in more income, but we were spending it all, and saving nothing! This has got to change! So, I decided that this summer we as a family will recommit ourselves to frugal living. I will worry about earning money less and family more. If I'm not working myself silly, running out to dinner will not be as tempting as it has been. Cooking meals at home will be a family activity. The kids and I will cook and bake and spend time together. I will teach them how to shop sales and use coupons. Tristen is eager to learn the ins and outs of CVS shopping. We will spend less on entertainment, eating out, and all the things we have started wasting money on. But, I am determined that we will have a great time anyway and will not miss these unnecessary expenses. I will write about what we are up to and if we are feeling deprived. I just know that I've got to get our priorities straightened out and that having more money will never be the first priority in my home!

I'd love to hear from other frugal families. Have y'all ever had a setback or flat out fallen off the frugal bandwagon. I would love to know how you got back on track!

A Great Frugal Resource

I recently read Miserly Moms by Jonni McCoy and was completely thrilled with it! Anyone wanting to cut back on spending and live a more frugal lifestyle needs a copy of this book. The author chose to quit working and be a SAHM, and she writes about how she went from a two income household to one. If you are looking to do the same, or just looking to stretch your family's resources during these tough times, this book is a great resource.

The amount of information in Miserly Moms is unbelievable! From spotting advertising tricks, shrinking packaging, truly good deals, or marketing ploys, Jonni McCoy covers it all. She also hits on meal planning, cooking from scratch, making your own products from household cleaners to beauty aids. There is a lot of great advice in these pages. This book truly can help you cut back on your spending.

Whether you are just starting your frugal journey, or are a miser from way back like me, this book is a great read. It's filled with great tips, testimonials from other moms, and just really sound advice that will help your family. I give it two thumbs up!

Awesome Frugalness: Getting Started

When I sat out to change the way we spend money and ultimately change our lifestyle, it was hard to know where to start. I finally realized that the first step was figuring out where our money was going. We kept notebooks on us and wrote down every penny we spent for about 6 weeks. If I gave the kids 50 cents for ice cream at school, I wrote it down. Every soda, bag of dog food, stick of gum, every last penny that went out, we listed it all. We were shocked by what we found! So much money going out of the house as unnecessary. I highly suggest starting with tracking your spending.

After you've done that for a month or so, look over what you've written down? How much of it expenses that you HAVE to pay, like utilities, house payment, etc? How much of it was money you didn't need to spend? Sort out your needs and your wants. It's very eye opening.

One big thing with us was the amount of money being spent on DH's breakfast and lunch during the work week. It was about $200 a month, way more than we could comfortably afford. Our first step was me getting up and making his breakfast, something I am not great at I admit. He is not a cereal type of guy. So, some mornings I fix his breakfast and some mornings he eats things like homemade sausage biscuits or breakfast burritos that I make up in bunches and pop in the freezer. He grabs a cup of coffee, a glass of milk, or juice if we have it and has a good meal at a fraction of what he was spending. I also starting packing his lunches, which helped a lot. About a month into this I realized he was still spending $2 or so a day on drinks during lunch, so now I buy sodas and bottled water on sale, usually at CVS with ECBs, and send them along instead. There is almost always a 12 pack of water in our van now for him to have at work. DH doesn't feel deprived and we are saving some serious money.

So, I urge you to think about the money you spend and see if you cannot come up with an alternate solution. If you love candy bars, buy the six bar packages at the grocery store instead of one $1 bar at the Stop & Shop everyday. This is just one of many ways you can save. Your success here will depend on your family situation. Cloth diapers are much more economical than Pampers, but is that a change you're willing to make? Are you willing to make your own baby wipes rather than spend $3 a box on the disposables? What about making your own cleaning solutions and using old rags rather than that tub of cleaning wipes, name brand cleaners, and paper towels? Think out of the box, get creative, and you can see real savings!

Also, find expenses you can completely eliminate if at all possible. One of those in our home was satellite television service. We still watch TV online and don't miss it at all! Really think about what you are spending and if you can be happy without it.

So, tracking your spending is the first step. Then sort out needs versus wants. Cut the things you can live without. Come up with alternate, less expensive plans for the things you cannot do without. These are the first steps to "awesome frugalness".

Awesome Frugalness?

Princess Ashley said the funniest thing over the weekend. We were at the grocery store, desperately trying to put together some good coupon deals in a store that is hard to do in. I was flipping through my binder when she said, "Mom, you've got frugalocity." Frugalocity? She explained that is the word for awesome frugalness. Interesting.

Anyway, it got me to thinking about how lately my frugalness is somewhat less than awesome. Frugal living is why I started Ramblings, yet after moving here to Podunk, I've focused on it much less. In these difficult economic times, I think I'd like to get back to sharing more about frugal living. I also need to rededicate myself to living frugally, as I've not been as strict about it recently as I need to be for the sake of our family.

So, what do y'all think? Would you be interested on future posts about how to live well on less? I'm interested in your feedback! :-)

Being Frugal

Those of you who are long time readers know that being frugal is just something I do. It is why I started this blog, to help others to be more frugal. I really hope that I've succeeded in that mission.

We have not always been frugal. In fact, we were once awful with money. I look back and realize how stupid were with our finances. Through homelessness, unemployment, having no electricity, and even having food stamps it seems we just made mistake after mistake with what little we had. We spent until there was nothing left. Then we went into debt. Pawn shops, payday loans, if it advertised helping low income families we ended up neck deep in it. We lost so much and it was really scary!

That was as recently as three years ago. What has changed? The way we think about and use money has changed. The biggest thing is we really think about every penny we spend. Well, most of the time anyway. Discovering coupons I feel saved our family. It takes so work, but the savings do add up and it is such a blessing! With the economy so bad right now, I wish I could help others to change their lifestyles so things wouldn't be quite as hard.

I want people to understand that you can live simply, frugally, and still be happy. WE are a family of four, with one income, living on about $1500 a month. We still eat well, have money for entertainment, and can have an occasional dinner out even after all the bills are paid. WE do not receive food stamps, but we do have help with the kids' medical insurance. It is hard sometimes, but we do it. No, we don't live in a fancy house, have new clothes, or extravagant furnishings. Our biggest expense is our car payment, but it was absolutely necessary. DH could not walk the 25 miles to work everyday. I guess we are extremely low income, but we don't see it that way. We are happy and don't feel deprived of anything.

If I had to choose one thing to tell people who are beginning their frugal journey it would be just really think about where your money is going. If you really start thinking about it, you will find areas where you can reduce your spending. Easy baby steps are starting to meal plan & cook from scratch, letting go over the morning coffee or soda on the way to work, starting to use coupons, or simply cutting cutting out unnecessary expenses. Baby steps lead to big things!


SAVING is good.

Neighbor Helping Neighbor

This week we are trying something different. We are combining the resources of our household with those of our dear neighbors at dinner time. I am loving it because we have no stove, so all my cooking has been done via crock pot, electric griddle, and fry daddy. Plus, I really love cooking, which Lenore does not, and have missed it. So, we combine our resources to make a really good meal, rather than two so-so meals. If we don't want to eat together, we divide the food and I bring our part home. We are two low income families, so this arrangement really helps us both stretch our grocery budgets.

I believe that with the current economic crisis, we will see more of this type of thing. I was reading an article about the great depression last night and they had interviewed a man who had lived through the great depression. He talked about how you made your friends your family and neighbors pulled together to help each other survive. It was pretty interesting, especially considering what Lenore had posted yesterday morning. She wasn't necessarily talking about economics, but I found it to be an amusing coincidence. Maybe some of the only good to come out of the current state of things will be to bring friends and family closer together.

I am curious as to what your families are doing to survive these tough times. Have you cut back your spending, given up your morning Starbucks, started clipping coupons? Please leave me some comments! I think we can all use all the frugal ideas we can get!

Tuna: Frugal & Versatile

Tuna 20 Ways

My neighbor Lenore gave me this article out of the paper awhile back and I loved it. I knew that tuna is a frugal pantry staple, but I honestly didn't realize you could do so much with it. We were stuck in a tuna rut - tuna salad and tuna helper are pretty much all we do. I was thrilled to discover some new recipes that the family really likes! We enjoyed the tuna, spaghetti, & lemon, the tuna melt, and all the different things that were stuffed with tuna. So check out Tuna 20 Ways and you might just find a new favorite for your family. I'd love to know what some of your frugal tuna recipes are! Please share any and all of your tuna dishes in the comment section.

What Would You Do?

If you quite suddenly lost $500 in monthly income, what would you do? Would you be able to survive? This is the question facing one of my dear friends. This is not an extravagant family; in fact they are impressively frugal. So, today I've been pondering this question, as an already frugal person, what else could I do to trim that much cash off our budget. The neighbors have discussed giving up the satellite tv, the living room furniture payment, and the second car.

Personally, I've had to find ways to save money since I'm not working. My frugality allows me to be a stay at home mom. Things that have helped us are:

Hard Core Coupon Usage - I've been told that I am obsessed

Built a Stockpile - I am back to square one on this one after the move :-(

Completely Changed the Way We Shop - I am no longer brand loyal to anything! If I can get something for just pennies or free, I buy it. There is always somewhere to donate things to. I will not step foot into a store without a list. Also, my binder goes with me even on trips to run in and grab milk...you never know when you'll have the perfect q's for an unadvertised deal.

WAY Less Eating Out - Now eating out is a rare treat for us. I've learned to make quite a few of our favorite restaurant meals at home. We eat out while staying in.

CVS - This wonderful little store has saved us SO much money. I do not pay for any type of health/beauty supply anymore. This is a savings of hundreds of dollars annually. Not only that, but I get other things the family needs as well, without paying a dime. I am so thankful for CVS and the ECB program. If you'd like more info on this, just email me.

Everything else is just how we've always lived. We don't rent movies unless it's a Redbox freebie. We do not go to the movies, instead we play board games with the kids. We travel very little, be it out of town or just to and from the store...saving on gas is a big concern. We shop at garage sales as much as possible. I cook from scratch and menu plan. That's about it.

I am always looking for ways to be more frugal. Often, I find a hint I never would have thought of alone. There are lots of things I want to experiment with as well; like once a month cooking, to see if it would save us more.

So, I ask you, if you suddenly had $500 less a month how would you get by? Could you do it? Please share any tips, comments, experience you may have. I can't wait to see what ya'll do to live frugally!

My .49 Kroger Shopping Spree!

So, I hit the fantastic sale at Kroger today and did awesome! My total was originally -.60, so I grabbed a couple of candy bars and ended up paying .49! My total savings was $59.45 or 99%! Here's what I got!

2 - 4 rolls pkg. Cottonelle
2- 4lb. bags Domino sugar
1- Betty Crocker boxed blueberry muffin mix
6 tubes Grands biscuits
3 tubes cinnamon rolls
3 tubes crescent rolls
1 Pilsbury pizza crust tube
1 box Hungry Jack instant potatoes
1 Excedrin tube
4 bottles SoBe Life Water
1 box NY Texas Toast
4 Lipton Noodle Side Dishes
3 bottles French's yellow mustard
2 bottles French's spicy brown mustard
1 Temptations cat treats
2 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

I was quite pleased! And the best part is, I was told this is a TWO WEEK sale! I can't wait to get some more great deals! I just had to share. Kroger is most definitely worth shopping this week!

Meal Planning

Along my frugal journey I've found that there are several schools of thought on this.

Some folks say the most frugal way to handle food costs is to plan a full month's worth of meals in advance and do all your cooking from scratch. This is how my household did things for quite a while. I will say that cooking only from scratch, buying in bulk, and buying generic brands did slash our grocery costs.I pretty much knew what we would spend on each week's meal plan, so it made budgeting easy. This method also taught me that I am a pretty good cook. But this practice had drawbacks. I noticed that baking my own bread was indeed cheaper, but not good for us at all, as the family seems to inhale fresh from the oven loaves. We were eating a lot more sweets; cheap baked goods were filling holes in our meals. And I found that planning this far ahead didn't allow for grabbing great deals during weekly sales. I never consulted sales ads, our meals were based on the absolute cheapest things my family would eat.

Then I found couponing and long term meal planning flew out the window. With double and triple coupons I was suddenly picking up all sorts of good stuff for next to nothing! For the first time in a long time I could get the kids treats they asked for without breaking the bank. Now, I've heard the argument that couponers must have horrible diets because most coupons are for processed foods. But, I found the opposite to be true for us. We ate more produce, frozen/canned fruits and veggies, and good quality dairy products than ever before. No more powdered milk, I grabbed a gallon at CVS with ECBs every week. But again, this had problems. Living from paycheck to paycheck left us in the position of not being able to build an ample stockpile. Also, there are some weeks that nothing is really a good deal. If you are planning your meals from week to week, a bad sales ad can really put a kink in things. I will say that this type of shopping made a huge difference in our monthly food costs.

So, I am still trying to figure out what works best for us. I have learned that for me, couponing and buying name brand products saves me a lot more than just buying generics ever did. So, I just pick up whatever good deals I come across on a weekly basis. I try to buy lots of different meats when they are at a stock up price. Doing this gets us past weeks when no meat is son sale. I do a lot of cooking from scratch still. I just pay less with coupons for my ingredients. We have more money in our grocery budget now that we pay zero for HBA, which really helps. I am trying really hard to build a good pantry and freezer stockpile. Some weeks I have more money to use for this purpose than others. But, meal planning is still a struggle. I think folks with great stockpiles have an easier time with this. At the moment, I am trying to plan things one week at a time.

I think making a meal plan for a family is always challenging. You have different people with different tastes, everyone has varying budgets, and eating a well balanced diet is important. I am finding that to follow the food pyramid can be quite costly. But, I feel my children's' nutrition is very important, so I keep researching and working at it. I also really love to cook and sometimes have to resist going out and buying everything to try the new recipe I found. I know I'll finally figure out the best way to do this.

I'd love to hear how the rest of you plan your meals. Also, how do you fit the rising cost of healthy foods into your budgets? I'm eager to hear what works for ya'll, so please comment away!

Words of Wisdom for Wednesday

"That most of us are considered poor is no disgrace, but does us credit; for, as the mind is weakened by luxurious living, so is it strengthened by a frugal mind" Minucius Felix

I came across this quote while reading The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn today. I completely agree with it! Frugal consumers put a lot more thought into what they buy, what they eat, pretty much every aspect of their lives. One thing I noticed right off when starting to coupon and switch our lifestyle to a more frugal one is that it takes work. You have to organize, plan, calculate, list, plan for the unexpected, then organize more to really maximize your frugal efforts. It isn't all that difficult once you get the hang of it and it is so rewarding! And a bonus is that it keeps your mind working! Myself, as a SAHM, I sometimes had "dead brain" days when I felt like I hadn't really had a productive thought in ages. This new way of living makes me think and keeps me sharp, which is yet another great bonus to a frugal lifestyle!

New Blog & New Goals

Along with the new look, I also have some new goals. After a long talk with my hubby, we have set a few goals for ourselves. The ones I want to talk about here all involve are never ending quest to stretch our pennies.

1. I want a digital camera, and I'd like to have it soon. I realize this is not a necessity, but we have no camera at all and I feel like we are missing out on recording our kids childhoods. It doesn't have to be fancy, just an affordable, decent quality camera. I have no idea what this will cost us, so I need to do some more research. This is, in my mind the easiest to achieve of the goals.

2. We both very much want to drive to Vermont to see my brother (in law) graduate next year. Our rough estimate indicates that we need to put back about $225 per month for this trip. I honestly have no idea what a trip like this would cost, as we've never been anywhere really. My main concern is that gas could cost $10 a gallon by this time. As of now, we are figuring the cost of the trip at about $3000. Any ideas about frugal ways to travel would be greatly appreciated.

3. Dan would like to have the minivan payed off in 18 months or so. We'd need to save an extra $200 a month to make this feasible.

Here's the thing. If you know us, you know that we sort of squeak by as it is. So, we've been trying to find areas we can cut back in. If this has any chance of working, I need to get back to seriously couponing. For the past 6 weeks or so you could say I've not given coupons and bargain hunting the attention I should have. Dan actually paid full price for stuff while I was sick! It was horrifying! But, in all seriousness I have got to buckle down and trim the budget in all ways possible. I know it can be done.

So, for now at least, this blog will chronicle my efforts to trim spending and bring in extra cash. I hope to post good deals I find, frugal tips and tricks, recipes, and anything I find useful along the way.

Thanks for continuing to read my blog and for all your feedback! Ya'll are the best!