Welcome to Centsable Savings Stories and Struggles! This week Natalie from South Dakota Deal Seekers is sharing her story. Natalie was not born a frugal person and her story is proof that anyone can learn to be a bargain shopper! I especially love the lessons she has learned through frugal living. Thanks for sharing, Natalie.
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 Natalie, and I’m a 38 year old wife and mother to one preschooler with a baby on the way.
Who was I before couponing?
I’ve never been a frugal person – just the opposite. I’d always spent every dime I had as soon as I could. I had never saved even $10, ever, in my whole life. I had never written a purchase down in a check register. I never had a budget, and I never considered if I could afford something before I bought it.
Money meant nothing to me. It was the ultimate intangible.
I had no idea what the price of anything was. I couldn’t have come within $3 when guessing what a jar of peanut butter or a pound of ground beef cost. I didn’t know that prices change from week to week or from store to store.
I simply NEVER looked at a price.
I never shopped a sale, never menu planned, never asked for a discount, never used a coupon, or any kind of store loyalty or frequent shopper/diner program. If someone offered me a discount, I turned it down. I didn’t need a discount – I had money.
I ate at the best restaurants, ordered the most expensive food and drink, shopped for top of the line, name brand, department store, salon, boutique, specialty, high end. I bought lavish gifts, and picked up the tab for the whole group often. I guarantee you I never, ever bought a generic item in my life.
What inspired me to change?
Life arranged a perfect storm for me. All at once, my daughter arrived, we dropped my nearly 6 figure income so I could stay home with our baby, but we had no budget or expense reducing plan in place. We started hemorrhaging money at an unbelievable rate due to two adoptions and three moves in four years, each with home sale/purchase in a declining housing market. We had one very good income and good savings and could actually keep pace for a while. For a while.
About eighteen months ago, we had drained every asset we could justify, and it was pretty obvious I had to go back to work. (We did not take on debt, thank heaven) However, I knew I belonged at home with my child. I was dragging my feet, postponing the job hunt.
At this time, I somehow stumbled onto one of the popular money saving websites. I remember writing about it on my personal blog at the time. I was dumb-founded. I actually called it “magic” — how could anyone spend so little on food, household items and diapers? It didn’t seem possible. I spent more than $40 a week on just soda and coffee at the time. What I was reading was just crazy talk.
I spent days and days just linking to and reading frugal and money saving site after frugal and money saving site. I remember writing a post, again on my personal blog, titled, “I buy my bread at the store, OK?” I still could not understand why everyone made their own bread, tortillas, laundry detergent, etc. etc. I really just could not make any of this click in my head. It couldn’t have been more difficult for me to understand if it was written in a language I did not know how to read.
When there is no where to go but up, everything is progress.
I remember my first coupon buy – Fast Fixin’s Dino (Chicken) Nuggets. I got 7 bags free at Walmart after coupons. The cashier was begging me to tell her how I did it. I got the adrenaline rush. I was hot, COUPON HOT, baby! Never mind we don’t eat chicken nuggets. I still have some of those original 7 bags in my freezer today.
From there I tried one thing and then another. I made huge progress quickly. That was the thing that kept me going – so much savings could be had so easily. Even when I missed meeting a goal, I had still saved a tremendous amount.
I loved the challenge of the drug store game and started there. Little by little it carried over into my food buying habits, and I now have it down to about $50/week for everything – including a lot of soda and coffee still and I have a nice (but not huge) stockpile.
Today I am still most frugal with food, diapers, health and beauty products and household cleaning items. I have a lot of savings opportunities to explore in other areas.
How couponing has changed my life
It has deepened my faith. I see clearly that money is not the answer to the question, but rather the trick question that can obscure the one true answer. My lower budget has allowed me to see how the Lord works in my life on a daily basis. We live abundantly, and it isn’t because of money.
I am so much more confident with my place in our home. I no longer feel guilty, like I should be some where else earning money. I can enthusiastically enjoy every minute of my time being at home with my family.
I’ve learned to live on less and go without. I’m simply a different person, as my whole view of acquiring things has changed. In part because I’m older, in part because I’ve had to move everything I own three times in four years, and in part because I see the total cost of it – the cost to acquire it, finance it, store it, clean it, heat it, cool it, move it, run it, dispose of it, the cost. I’m much more selective about what comes into my house now. We experience great gratification in living well on less and with less.
I have completely let go of keeping up with the Jones, doing the next new thing, having the most current or the biggest or the fastest . . . I’ve done all that, and I wasn’t as happy as I am today, and that is a lesson I reflect on every day and certainly with major decision we make.
My husband and I have a renewed relationship as we work together to save money, instead of venting our stress to each other as we worry about our finances.
I am happy. I’m not stressed. I’m not at work, wishing I was at home. I’m not at home, feeling guilty because I should be working. I’m not afraid of what we don’t have or can’t pay. I don’t want anything, but my children, my husband, and our health and safety. I am so grateful for everything we do have, so profoundly grateful, that it is nearly impossible to be unhappy. That’s a nice place to be.
All that from a great sale, with a coupon, and probably a rebate/gift card/catalina in return. That’s a pretty good deal.
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.
