I have to say that being married to a frugal farmer, we live a very modest life. When I talk about modest, I mean no ruffles or extras, no fancy schmancy anything and we really know how to live on a dime. We grow a lot of our own food, I have had to give up a lot of the luxuries I once knew from my city life, and we rarely splurge on anything. The one huge purchase I made was the 52 inch smart TV I bought for our family as a Christmas present for all of us. That is all.
As a working mom and as a frugal farmer’s wife, I budget for each month, I use coupons and take advantage of specials and deals, and I do not use my credit card unless it’s an emergency. I take advantage of P&G brand saver coupons, because every little bit helps. It all adds up to a lot of savings on products our family uses regularly. By using P&G brand saver coupons, we’re saving money on items like Bounty paper towels, Duracell batteries and Crest toothpaste and mouthwash. Oh, of course, we also save on items that Hubby insists on having (like his Gillette products and his Head & Shoulders –the only shampoo/conditioner he ever uses).
Then why is it so hard to keep money IN our accounts and save better?!?
I have a confession. I’m a huge fan of loyalty cards and I collect points, but I have never actually redeemed my points for anything. Making a mental note to check what I can get with my Air Miles!
With all the scrimping and saving, and being frugal (as Hubby likes to say, “wise”) with our money, I’d like to know how I can SAVE more money in our savings accounts. For this reason, I’m taking a challenge.
The family financial challenge
My family will be participating in the family financial challenge with Gail Vaz-Oxlade using Gail’s rules from her Money Rules book. I’ll be using Gail’s tips to save money and I’ll be sharing with my readers and followers on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Some of my fellow P&G Moms will be participating in the challenge as well.
Follow the #SavingMadeSimple hashtag for money saving tips. You will be able to keep up to date on our progress and see the ways we save. We’d love to hear some of your money saving tips as well!
Each week of the challenge will be broken down into themes and will be followed by tips, tricks and weekly challenges based on the following topics:
• Week 1 – Cash, Cash, Cash
• Week 2 – Food
• Week 3 – Family
• Week 4 – Clothes
Follow my progress on my social media platforms and see how I’ll be saving in the next few weeks! I will also be posting at the end of the challenge so you can see just how well we did! I am excited and a bit nervous to see how we do on the challenge, and eager to share our experience with everyone.
Like I said, we already live on a shoestring budget, so this family financial challenge should be interesting! I don’t know how we can possibly save even more when we don’t even spend lavishly to begin with! 🙂 Wish us luck determination fortitude!
Disclosure: I am a P&Gmom/mamanP&G. As part of my affiliation with this group I receive products and special access to P&G events and opportunities. The opinions on this blog are my own.
I agree – it’s hard to cut back when you are already living frugally. I look forward to hearing what tips Gail Van-Oxlade has, and seeing if you come up with any revelations. Hopefully I’ll get some good ideas from your posts. Good luck!
Neat challenge!! Good luck and I hope to get updates on your progress. I have similar feelings about having no clue about where we could POSSIBLY cut down, and it definitely is something to ponder about.
Victoria, pretty crazy since we already don’t spend lavishly! LOL!
love p&g especially their pampers cruisers and easy ups. we just stopped buying the easy ups (hes been dry at night for a while and started to climb up to the shelf they were kept on. and wear them during the day causing him to regress. hes been doing well without them completely for a week.) my youngest is still in cruisers and wont be potty training for a while. but they have some decent coupons and a great points program. (I have gotten my kids some great gifts like a bike, puzzles, dvds… all free for buying a product I need anyway and taking a few seconds to enter in a code.
for clothes we buy the kids stuff at Walmart because they have some really nice licensed tshirts for 7$ each. (super Mario, ninja turtles, spiderman…) that way they get the cool characters they want without breaking our budget. my husband buys his jeans for 10$ or less. I however like to have nice clothes and jeans for women (especially plus size) are expensive. so I wait fot the end of season clearance sales to buy myself pants. I recently got a 90$ pair of pants for 25$ and a 60$ pair for 30$. I get a lot of tops for free by redeeming pin codes from cereal or other company giveaways.
I also use coupons, stick to cash, and we don’t have a credit card anymore. (but my husband is trying to pay off his student loan and credit card debt he brought into the relationship. so it will be a while before we have any extra money.)
a big money saver is that hubby works for our service provider so we get half off our cable, internet, and cellphone bills. (we got rid of our home phone because it was a useless expense we weren’t using.) and once in a while if they have a better package deal he will call up and switch to a cheaper plan that has the same or more features for less money.
Francine, you are a smart woman when it comes to saving and money!
Good luck on the challenge, will be looking forward to seeing how you make out. Not sure how well we would do on it, but it might be something to think about trying.
Thanks, Judy!