Where to Begin

So everyone has seen the hundreds of blogs, post, and websites regarding living simply and frugally, however, I believe I can help someone with my tips, tricks, trials and fails at attempting to live as simple and frugal as possible.

I am a mom of 2 growing boys ages 10 and 6, a wife and also a nurse who works Per Diem at this time. My husband is a stay at home dad (not by choice but due to an accident causing him to be disabled) who has my dream job! I have always wanted to be the stay at home mom who takes care of the kids, the house and who keeps everyone happy. Being a nurse is very rewarding and I do not regret this choice at all, however, being a mom is my first choice. 

My attempts at living simply and frugally all began when my husband became disabled and we mainly started to depend on my paycheck(if you think a nurse makes tons of money your wrong). My husband does get a disability check, however we all know this money does not stretch far. We began living paycheck to paycheck and stretching our pennies as far as we could. We are currently trying to get out of debt from my student loans and credit card bills. A little over a year ago I started the Jones Family Budget in a notebook basically writing down all our monthly expenses and our total income. I soon saw the numbers for the expenses out weighed our total monthly income. This scares me to this day! I get paid biweekly and my husbands disability check comes once month. Once a week I re-evaluate our bills that are due or other expenses such as medications, sports for the boys or the normal everyday living needs.

My first trial of being as frugal as possible started with groceries. I tried cutting here the most. With 2 growing boys and a husband with a meat and potato appetite I soon discovered I needed to make some big changes. First I started with building a pantry stock pile. I would take $10 a week and buy pantry staples. My goal was to always have at least 2-3 of the same items in the pantry so I always had a back-up. Some of the items I purchase for the pantry are what some may call simple such as oatmeal, yeast, sugar, flour, condiments. I then began the process of stocking up on soups and can veggies (my son will only eat canned carrots)! My pantry became full quickly. As I use up the stock I replenish to always have a back-up.

I will continue my frugal tips and savings ideas in future posts. Thanks for taking the time to read my post! Have a happy frugal day :)