Raising a Family and Pinching Pennies-Does it have to hurt
Hi there! I’m absolutely new to this blogging thing. I’ve read them before, but this is my first attempt at writing. No snickering. LOL Just a short intro – I’m Joy, known as Enjoyin’9 on the boards. I’m older than I’d like, but most people guess my age at least 5 years younger than I am. I’ve been married to a wonderful husband for 22 years and we’ve had 7 children during that time. Our oldest is 21, married & has her own baby now (I’m learning to be a grandma! How weird is that?! Cutest baby I’ve seen for years though… and I’m sure I’m not at all biased lol ), then we have a son 19 who is in El Salvador serving a mission for our church, and the rest are still living at home: ds 17, dd 15, ds 11, dd 6 & dd4. We are on an adoption waiting list, hoping for a newborn baby to join our family in the next year! Can’t wait!
Pinching pennies is a lifestyle for me brought in part from the way I was raised as well as from the quantity of people in our family. I work at it in varying degrees…. sometimes the pennies scream and sometimes they just whimper a little. LOL I’ve found over the years that the part of my budget that is easiest to play with is my grocery/food budget. I watch spending in all areas, but this one seems to be the easiest to tweak. After a time, it becomes second nature so it really IS painless. A few penny pinching practices in our home include: cooking from scratch, planning menu’s
(I struggle with that sometimes), doing laundry during our cheap power hours to keep our electric bill down, taking time to sift through clearance racks to find clothing that is stylish AND affordable.
Penny pinching is an art. I’m an advanced beginner. LOL Start out easy, choose an area of your budget you think you can tweak lower without too much pain and go from there! Make it a game, it really doesn’t have to hurt, and when those pennies scream, You’re the Winner!
Joy