If you’d like to share your story, I’d love to hear from you. Please email me at centsable.katherine[at]gmail.com. More details are at the end of this post.
My name is Jana, and my husband Ben and I have been married for five years. We have two wonderful kids, Caitlyn who is three and Jackson who’s two. Ben is in his third year of graduate school, and I am happy to be able to be a stay-at-home mom. We have a few school loans, but are trying to keep them to a minimum, so I have had to be frugal and creative with our budget.
Last year, one of my friends started posting on her family blog about her amazing savings using coupons. She would write about spending pennies at CVS and leaving the store with armloads of groceries. I was intrigued. I had no idea that I could be saving so much money. I decided to look into the whole couponing idea, and quickly became excited with what I found.
After being directed to visit a couple of money saving blogs, I started doing internet searches for more ideas, which is how I found Becentsable. I started collecting coupons, wanting to see if I could find the same great deals as all of the amazing shoppers I was reading about. After a few weeks of collecting and finding great deals, I was hooked.
Besides helping us to save on our weekly and even monthly grocery budgets, learning to use coupons has helped me as I try to develop a storage of food and supplies for the future. Our church advocates saving and having enough food on hand for a long term period, in case there were ever a reason that we couldn’t shop as often as usual. I am amazed and happy to say that not only have I been able to buy everything I need on my weekly grocery lists using the money that I budget but also my weekly grocery budget now covers extra items to add to my storage. I am usually able to buy everything that I need and some extra for my family of four for about $55 per week. I try to include diapers and toiletries in this total, and usually I can.
Learning to shop frugally and using coupons have been great blessings in my life. We have about two more years of school before Ben is finished. That means we’ll have at least that much longer living on an extremely tight budget, but I am happy to say that I’ve learned how to make finding deals a game that I look forward to playing every week!
I have been thinking about starting a blog for the past several months, and finally decided to do so. I feel that since I have been blessed so much, I need to help others, especially as this time has been economically challenging for so many people so I decided to start a blog that I have titled Blessing from Saving. I hope that it is beneficial to others.
Each week I feature a different shopper’s story. Centsable Savings Stories are the stories of people just like you who are working toward reducing their budgets, bargain hunting, living a more frugal lifestyle and constantly learning along the way. If you are interested in sharing your family’s successes and struggles, please contact me at centsable.katherine[at]gmail [dot]com. Bloggers and non-bloggers are both welcome to participate. Click here to read the stories of shoppers featured in the past.
