It's time for a family budget update (we'll get back to food storage next week)! If you know us, you know that we love to budget! We love budgeting because it allows us to do what we want with our money and helps us reach our financial goals. If you are not a budget lover, you might be confused when you hear me say that our budget "allows us to do what we want with our money," but it's true! When we budget, we decide on our priorities and put our money there! On the flip side, without ... read more
3 Money Saving Tips for People Who Hate Frugality
Are you the kind of person who rolls their eyes when people start talking frugality? Do you cringe at the thought of being frugal? Well today I'm sharing some tips especially for you--tips to help you make progress toward your financial goals without making you do those frugal things you hate. Somehow "frugal" for you got a bad rap. Maybe you're tired of people telling you NO--no Starbucks, no eating out, no cable. Well, I'm not going to tell you NO today. But I promise that if you follow ... read more
Getting Started With Food Storage– Building a 1-3 month supply (and why you should)
With food shortages, disruptions in the supply chain, and orders to shelter in place, it's no wonder that food storage is a hot topic. After seeing our family's food storage challenge during the coronavirus quarantine, I've been getting lots of questions about food storage. Maybe you've known that having food storage is important, but you just haven't made it a priority in the past. Or maybe until recently you had never even considered the idea of food storage. Either way, now is a fine ... read more
The Garden Project (What we did with our stimulus check)
With food shortages, rising prices, and job insecurity we were really itching to grow a garden this year. There were lots of reasons why growing a garden-- this year especially-- was important to us. We've had a garden for most of our married life (nearly 15 years!) besides the past three years. When we bought this house just over three years ago, we knew we wanted a garden, but it was something that was going to require some major work. The majority of our property is on a serious ... read more
Debt Smash-athon MAY 2020 Progress Report
Time for a Debt Smash-athon update! I love hearing how each of our Debt Smashers is making progress toward their goals! It's so encouraging to see you pushing past obstacles and making the most of your situation. Paying off debt is surely not easy and definitely not the most fun thing you could be doing with your money, but it's so worth it! I'm excited to share some of the encouragement that each of you shared. You are all so inspiring! For those who are new here, in 2019 we had a ... read more
Biggest Grocery Haul EVER– June 2020
It has been three months since our last monthly gorcery haul, so it probably comes as no surprise that June's monthly grocery haul is the biggest one we have ever had. We have never spent this much money on groceries ever! We've never even spent anywhere near this much money on food in a month! Don't worry about our budget though! This doesn't all come out of June's grocery budget. We put $500 in June's grocery budget ($400-$500 is normal for our family of 8), but we have about $500 in a ... read more
5 Frugal Habits that Prepared Us For Quarantine
Quarantine life has been really hard on a lot of people. And understandably so! Most of us are used to coming and going as we please and having access to all the food and household supplies we need. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. Add in working at home, schooling at home, and working while schooling at home, and suddenly nothing is normal. While we didn't specifically prepare to shelter-in-place for a pandemic, some of our ingrained frugal habits made the adjustment to ... read more
What We Learned From Our Quarantine Food Storage Challenge
After three months of eating from our pantry, freezer, and long-term food storage, our Quarantine Food Storage Challenge is coming to an end. Today I'm sharing some of what we learned. Hopefully something will be helpful to you as you plan to be more prepared with your own food. First we'll cover the three reasons we decided to end our open-ended challenge now. Then I'll go over lessons we learned and what we plan to do about it! For those of you who look forward to these updates, this ... read more
Real Family Budget Update– May 2020
We've been talking food storage a lot lately around here, but today we're back to more normal programming with our monthly budget update for May. If you're new here, every month for more than six years we have shared our family's real budget numbers. I share what we actually earned, what we spent in each of our budget categories and how we are doing on our goals. Like many of you, our finances have been (and will be) affected by the coronavirus pandemic. So far it's just been a hit to ... read more
Quarantine Food Storage Challenge– Update 8 (What the Kids Think)
It's time for another look into how our family is handling eating from our food storage during the coronavirus quarantine. It's been over two months since any of us have gone to a grocery store. Our last monthly grocery haul was March 9th. In addition to staying safe, one of the main reasons for this food storage challenge is to take our food storage for a test drive and see what it's like to live off of our long-term food storage. We also want to know what our food storage is lacking so ... read more
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