Welcome to the NEW Show & Tell.
This will work just exactly like the Show & Tell did, you will leave a comment or a link about your shopping trip this week and how you did against your budget.
As a bonus for visiting, you also get to read about the journey other frugal families are taking.
This week we are featuring My Precious Pennies story!
Two years ago this week, my then-boyfriend now-husband made the wise/foolish (we haven’t decided yet) to join the Navy. When we got married six months later, we knew we weren’t going to be rich. No one gets rich in the military and we knew that – we just wanted to be together and live comfortably. We were a two income household of two, but yet we had trouble making ends meet.
We had no savings to speak of. My husband had gotten into some credit card debt, and he had a year of student loans. I, on the other hand, had a full 3 years of student loans to deal with. We would spend $200 at the commissary every two weeks, but end up with nothing to eat for dinner. As a result, our eat-out bill was astronomical.
Our turning point came on a rainy night in the form of a car accident. Thankfully we were able to walk away with no permanent damage, and we were able to take care of our debts with a quarter of the settlement check. We wanted to invest the reminder, and I started our first budget but only half-heartedly kept to it. We were quickly spiraling back out of control when we found out that we were expecting our first child.
I had a hard pregnancy – no medical problems to speak of, just terrible all-day nausea and vomiting that made it impossible to keep my job. Things became considerably tighter when we became a one-income household. However, the upside of the non-stop nausea was that we stayed home and was able to cut down on our spending. The insomnia that came in my third-trimester was a blessing in disguise, because in the dead of the night I stumbled across a number of money-saving blogs ran by brilliant stay-at-home moms. I started to read about all of their savings and decided that it might be worth my while to try my hand at couponing and CVS. Besides, it was better than watching infomercials at 3 AM in the morning.
With all of these moms as my inspiration, I reformed our budget and used it as my tool to attack our lifestyle in full force. I started to menu-plan, and based our shopping list around ingredients we would need for the week’s meals. I budgeted $50 a week for the commissary, and am proud to say that we have managed to stay under budget. We’ve also been eating like royalty – gone are the late-night meals of microwave macaroni and cheese…we now have nutritious family meals at the dinner table.
We used to be spending a LOT more than my husband was making, and looking back I am amazed that we lasted as long as we did. With a new baby in the house, it’s hard to make expenses fit within a meager military wage, but we’ve managed to satisfy all of our needs in addition to putting at least $600 away in savings each month. Although we use a credit card for the cash-back rewards, we are completely and utterly debt free.
In the past year, we have made tremendous progress, but there are areas that we still struggle with – mainly our eat-out bill. Try as we might, we just can’t seem to stay under $20 a month. Ideally, I would love to spend absolutely nothing on fast-food, but I’m realistic and I know that it will never happen in this family.
Another constant struggle we have is with the instability that is military life. Financially, we have to be prepared for our lives to be turned upside down at any given moment. My husband has only been away from home for short periods of time so far, but there will come a time when he’s gone for months on end. And wherever his “business trip” takes him, I’m sure that he won’t have a friendly neighborhood CVS or Walgreens to turn to for free stuff. And even if that phone call home is going to cost $10 a minute, I’m pretty sure that no one would object at that particular moment. Things are going to get more expensive at home too, because tasks that my husband would normally do will have to be taken care of by a hired hand. These are considerably small expenses, but those small expenses add up quickly. It’s hard to budget for the unpredictable, and there is so much that is unpredictable when the military is involved.
The constant relocation is also a big struggle for us – although the government takes care of a majority of the moving expenses and will issue reimbursements for travel expenses, they do not come quickly. It took 9 weeks for us to get our money during this last move, and while the government can make us wait, we can’t make the credit card companies wait.
Our precious little princess is only 4 months old, and I find myself constantly worrying about how we will be able to support any extracurricular activities or even another child in the future. However, I just have to remind myself to take one huddle at a time. My husband isn’t going to receive the same paycheck for the rest of eternity, and there will come a day when I might be able to pull in an income again.
I’ve learned that the only way to stay sane in this sea of madness is to take things one day at a time and to realize that you can only control your own actions, and sometimes, not even those. Life is a wild ride, and there’s really not much we can do except to enjoy where it takes us.
Each week we feature a different shopper’s story. If you are interested in sharing your family’s story (successes and struggles alike!) contact Chrissy(centsable.chrissy[at]gmail.com). Non-bloggers welcome!!
Now – time to share your great deals for the week!
Leave a comment or link below and don’t forget to join in the $5 Charity Challenge and Giveaway!!
