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This week Chris (Mom of our Channel 9 family) is here to share her story
My family: Married for 19 years with 5 children ages 17, 15, 13, 9 and 8. I am a stay at home mom and also home school all my children. My husband owns his own business and works out of an office in our house. So, you see my dilemma – 7 people – home all the time – we eat a lot of food. Not to mention our 2 dogs, 2 cats, 1 parrot and several fish. As our family grew I knew our grocery budget would need to grow as well and over the years I just became accustomed to spending whatever we spent on food each week. Those of you with teenagers know how they can eat and eat and eat and then say “I’m hungry”. Where do they put all that food?
Struggles: With the craziness of a large family I found that my trips to the store were basically to buy all those expensive items that would help make quick meals. I planned menus most of the time but not until very recently did I stick to them. I also would occasionally cut coupons and put them in a little organizer then not look at them again until the next time I felt a twinge of guilt for spending so much money at the grocery store – and of course by then all the coupons were expired. So much for that. Then there were the times that I felt the need to use the coupons – even for stuff I didn’t really want or need to buy, just to say that I got a deal by using a coupon. That would leave me with a kitchen full of stuff I didn’t use and I was still spending a ton of money at the store. There had to be a better way.
Hope: I had heard in the past of people who were able to get great deals at the store but never had the time to look into it. It always seemed like something that was too time consuming, confusing and to say the least – very overwhelming. Then I saw Chrissy on the local news and she made it look so easy. She talked about the different ways to save and they didn’t seem too hard to me. The news anchor said if anyone was interested they should write in about their family and maybe get the opportunity to learn and spend a day with Chrissy. Easy enough I thought. So I wrote in about my family and – YEA ME – they picked my story.
New shopper: Now I am into my 5th week of actively working to save money in my grocery shopping. I have had some trips to the store that were very encouraging – my favorite is my trip to the local Hen House grocery store where my total before coupons was $47.86 and after coupons I paid $5.23 – the poor checker thought he made a terrible mistake – it was quite fun. My thanksgiving shopping trip produced a savings of $38.22. I also now plan my menu after I have checked local deals so I am cooking according to what is going to save me the most money.
Yet to come: I am about to attend a workshop to learn the next big steps toward saving even more and I can’t wait. I have set a goal to be spending half of what I was by April of next year. That gives me 6 months to work at it and get a system down. I appreciate all the work that goes into the BeCentsAble website as that is truly what helps busy people like myself succeed. On a side note, my oldest daughter goes off to college next fall and she is learning how to save money right along with me.
THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO MAKES THIS SO EASY !
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