Frugality goes the extra mile

When we moved to Georgia, it was with the agreement that I would be a stay-at-home mom and Steve would bring home the paycheck. His salary is enough to cover the bills - barely - so we thought we'd be ok if we just lived frugally. Hence, we only have one car, don't get TV, don't go out to eat, etc. But then the car broke down and it cost us hundreds of dollars to fix it. And then I started thinking about emergency situations like that - and how it would be very, very difficult to make it with Steve's salary if we have to pay for extras. So, I decided to become very creative in saving money. I also am advertising for private students, which should help, but right now I only have one. I am grateful for him, though! Better one than none.

Anyway, I think one of my most creative approaches to saving money has been by learning the art of "couponing." I found this site: www.southernsavers.com, and it has helped me so much! I have gone from paying $100 in groceries each week to just slightly over that for the entire month of November. Of course, we have been eating our food storage and a lot of pasta (which I now get for free). I love going to drugstores now - and I NEVER used to go to these because I thought that they were too expensive. That was before I learned how to use their rewards systems. Here are a couple of pictures of what I'm able to do now:

I got these things at Walgreens. By using rewards, I paid a total of 72 cents out of pocket, which basically covered the tax. Who wouldn't love to get diapers for 72 cents, let alone this other stuff?

This is actually missing a Reeses - Steve got to it before I could take the picture. I'm actually very proud of this purchase because after I get back a mail-in-rebate for some shampoo and conditioner, I actually made about $5.00 for taking this stuff away from CVS.

Some weeks are better than others. Some weeks I get nothing, and this week I only got contact solution and lip balm, but hey, it was free!