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Welcome to Centsable Savings Stories and Struggles!
This week we are featuring Summer.
My Family: My husband and I have been married 8 years this December. I’m the mom of 2 busy boys and a cute baby girl. My boys are both in school and the baby is home with me. I started a blog design business (designsbysummer.blogspot.com) early this year and work from home making a little extra doing that. I also love to blog at summersnook.com.
Struggles: We married as students and my husband is still a student. He’s working towards a PhD and has been for the last 6 years. There’s still no end in site. They provide him with a yearly stipend, enough maybe for a single student but for a family of 5? We wanted to start our family early however and we haven’t regretted it, though we’ve had to squeeze by with student loan help on occasion. Another issue that really burdened us financially was when the student health committee increased insurance for spouses and children of students by 33%!! All to save single students $11 dollars a year. We were ticked. Right then my husband joined the student health organization and prevented another outrageous increase from occurring the very next year.
What Next: I haven’t always been the most cautious spender. Partly because we don’t have to pay loans back yet and I use to assume that we’d be able to pay it back as soon as my husband got a job. I never spent a ton anyway but obviously that’s a rather irresponsible mind set. As the economy has gotten worse and worse I’ve wondered if he will be able to get a job as soon as he graduates. I decided we needed to be more prepared. I began adding to our food and water storage just in case but I couldn’t add as much as I wanted to with so little to spend. About that time I was entering tons of giveaways online and I ran across some frugal blogs. I searched through them looking at posts where people would display pictures of things they had bought and how much they had saved. I was amazed! I knew right then I wanted to learn how to coupon like these crazy ladies around the blogosphere. I jumped right into the drugstore game. I found out about the program at CVS and it has been a life saver. I just bought two pkgs. of Pampers diapers there today for only $5.
Where Are We Now: I have large stockpiles of necessities on hand now that I barely spent anything on. I buy double or triple editions of the paper each week and make good use of the coupons. In about 6 months time I’ve gone from, ‘doesn’t monitor spending at all’ to ‘can’t spend full price for anything’ and the difference in our budget is noticeable. BeCentsable was one of those first blogs that I found that encouraged me to get started on this frugal journey. And I know the habits I’m building now will stick with me through the rest of my life.
Summer
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!
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