Thursday, August 14, 2008

My story

My house is quite (aka everyone is in bed but me) :) and I thought I would take a minute to explain what interested me on becoming more frugal. Jerry and I made the decision for me to work part time almost 3 years ago when I was pregnant with Kaylee. We knew this would be a drastic cut in our income but we knew the rewards of me being home with Kaylee and future children as much as possible would outweigh what we would have to cut in terms of material things. We knew we would start having to pay out HUGE premiums for family insurance (something foreign to both of us since our single premiums were paid by our employers) That on top of my income loss was huge and we thought we had a handle on it..........Ok fast forward 2.5 years to about six months ago and we realized over the past few years we had racked up some debt we wanted to eliminate. We also were not giving to others the way we once had and it was a huge burden on our heart. (we are still working to get where we want in the giving department) I think part of our problem was we lived so comfortably on two nice full time salaries and didn't realistically save for the cut in income. We were used to just taking vacations when we wanted and buying something (within reason) whenever we had the urge. We prayed and starting researching our options. #1 me go to work full time (neither I nor Jerry thought this would benefit our family especially since our plans are to get pregnant next spring) #2 Jerry get a part time job (again not a great option as he works so much as it is. In automotive management 12 hour days is about the norm) #3 get rid of our home( we don't have a big home but we love it and love, love, love having friends over and entertaining so this isn't something we wanted to do. So after much praying we looked for ways to cut our expenses in any area we could. Of course we couldn't cut the light bill or water bill but we did FINALLY find an option. We could make a conscious decision to REALLY clip coupons and be frugal on everything we spent. We felt this was our best option as it will enable us to have most of our debt paid off by the spring when we want to ttc again:) and it's something that didn't require huge sacrifice to our family. Now, I am not telling you we don't have lots to learn on this frugal adventure or there aren't things we choose not to give up. That would be simply a lie. I think every family no matter how frugal has things that they are not willing to skimp on. For us we ALWAYS go out to eat at least one a week (we have a $50/week budget unless we have a special occasion) Now I know this seems steep to be frugal but this is something our family loves doing together and we aren't willing to give this up. Also we like to take one nice vacation a year and Jerry and I try to plan at least a weekend getaway by ourselves. (income tax money helps off set these 2 expenditures) Wow! This post ended up being quite lengthily and I didn't intend that. However, I just wanted to share my true, real life story. Have a great night!

1 comment:

Laura said...

Hi, Lauren! I found your blog thru Baby Bangs! Isn't Amanda so funny?

I know what you mean about being frugal and giving and saving. Ugh! It's not any fun. We've bought the house next to ours and have been renovating it for over a year so money has been tight and it's not any fun not being able to go and do like I'm use to doing. Especially since we just put our daughter in a private school...I could go on and on, but I just wanted to say thanks for the encouragement to stay with it. Good luck yourself and come over for a visit when you get a chance!

P.S. We are Alabama fans! Roll Tide!!