Mall Madness? Online Shopping Bliss!

Check out how you can get some of you Christmas Shopping back!  Read my post here.

Super Savings Saturday - Lots of Stops, Lots of Savings...

Check out my spending and savings at Frugal Indy.  I saved $254 this week!

Walgreen's Coupon $5 off $20

Yea!  Walgreens has released a $5 off $20 coupon for  Fri & Sat.  

Read more and get the link here.

Kmart Shopping $85 for $14

You can see what I got at Kmart for $14.  The total before coupons was $85.

Go to my new blog Frugal Indy.

Veteran's Day

Happy Veteran's Day!

Stop by Frugal Indy today and read about a free postcard you can send to a soldier.  It's easy and quick!  

Super Savings Saturday - Kroger, Aldi and More

Check out my  Super Savings Saturday Shopping on my new blog Frugal Indy!  Check it out here!

Visit My New Blog

Please come and visit my new blog Frugal Indy.  I would love to have you stop by and take a look.  It is still in the beginning stage but stop on by!  

Free Night at the Indianapolis Children's Museum

You can read here about the Free First Thursday nights at The Children's Museum of Indiana.

Becoming a Thrifty Shopper - Part 2

I've had several motivations along the way, for living frugally and especially concentrating on being a thrifty shopper. When Ron and I first married, we were very blessed to be able to purchase a nice old fixer-upper home - we joke that it was like the house on "It's a Wonderful Life". That house took quite a bit of my time (and everyone else in my family's too!) and I wanted to stay home and work on it as much as possible. Also, I was 27 and my husband was 28 when we married and it was our desire to have a family and for me to stay home with our children. It was almost 7 years before the Lord blessed us with our first child - but that's another story! Let's just say Motivation #1 was I wanted to stay at home.

My husband brought some credit card debt into our marriage (I'm sure it was a result of treating me so nicely while we dated and presenting me with a beautiful ring when we got engaged. So, I take as much of the responsibility as he had, for the debt!) Right away we decided (after listening to Larry Burkett) that we would get out of debt and not go back into it again. My husband took a second (part-time) job and I started working part-time a few days a week. It took us about 6 months to a year to pay off that credit card. From that point we decided it was just too much work digging out of debt and that we would always pay the credit cards off each month or stop using them if we could not pay them off. That was one of the best pieces of advice that we had learned from listening to Larry Burkett and one that has helped us immensely! So Motivation #2 was to pay off our credit card debt and keep it paid off.

These are a few of the reason that we were motivated to live frugally early in our marriage. I have other motivations at this point in my life, and I will post more on them next time.

Shopping Break

Do you ever need a break? I've decided that I will take a few weeks off from coupon shopping - unless I see some great deal on yogurt! (We use a lot of that!)

That is one of the great things about "Stockpile Shopping" - you have a stockpile! So I plan to use it for the next few weeks and just make an occasional trip to Aldi's for the bare essentials. I LOVE October - is that weird? It's one of my favorite months, with the crisp morning air and warm afternoons, (I even like the rainy days) and I plan to enjoy it as much as possible.

You know, it's OK to give yourself a break! The deals will be there when you are refreshed and ready to cut the coupons and look at the sales papers. And if you miss a deal - well it's not the end of the shopping world!

So, I challenge you - if your pantry looks like mine - (nicely supplied), take the month off! Maybe, use the time to make some Christmas gifts and you'll be saving money both by not shopping and by making gifts that you might otherwise buy.

I plan to do a yard sale this Saturday. I've been wanting to do it all summer. This Saturday is to be 80 and sunny so this is it! Hopefully I'll make some money to use for Christmas gifts etc.

So, what would you do with the time off from shopping and with the extra money you could save if you took a week off - how about a month off? I figure I can cut my normally $50 food bill to around $10 - $15 for a few weeks by just getting the necessities. ( Milk, salad, veggies, chicken), and I will have enough extra time in the week for a trip to the zoo with the kiddies!