Real Stories from Real People

 Guest Post by Marlessa Southern

I would just like to start off by saying that I admire Tightwad in Training's money saving skills and coupon expertise!! I have never been skilled with coupons. In fact, just yesterday I went to Target with several coupons in my purse, and by the time I gathered my list of items and ended up at the checkout, I had a crying baby in my arm, a 3 year old climbing out of the cart and coupons flying everywhere!! The clerk was SO sweet and helped me gather my coupons; if it wasn't for her, they would have gone to waste.

I think the main reason I am far from a pro coupon queen is because I simply do not have the time. As much as I would like to say I have it all balanced and smoothly functioning everyday as a mom of two, I just don't. I do what I can do and try my best. I do pride myself on being a frugal shopper, however. With a family, I strive to find the best deals for them. My husband and I have a set budget, and we stick to it which is positively key in being financially responsible because the 'unexpected' inevitably happens!!

I look for sales, but I don't go crazy hitting every sale I find because that would defeat the purpose of a sale!! ;o) I look for sales that fit me and my family. I also learn when certain items will go on sale by looking them up online and learning the stores. For example...Almost every time a new movie releases, it is $5 off for the first few days to a week at Wal-Mart or Target. Target advertises their sales in advance every Sunday through Saturday. Wal-Mart is the BEST, cheapest place to buy groceries, in my opinion. I could spend hours sorting through coupons to hit up the nearest high end grocery store or go to Wal-Mart on a whim, saving just as much money because the prices are so much lower.

Just as Tightwad in Training has recommended, I, too, ask for coupons or specials whenever I can because it's always worth asking. I sign up for the coupons I will use online, especially baby coupons like diapers, wipes, etc. because I get absolutely, positively overwhelmed when random coupons come streaming in from everywhere. I take advantage of reward codes as well, and sometimes you can find items cheaper online than in a store, esp. at Wal-Mart; if you have them delivered to the nearest store, they come at no extra charge.

My husband loves thrift stores. Although it's not my forte, you can find really good deals occasionally. One thing we try really hard to do is research what we want to buy, especially for higher purchases that take more of a chunk out of your bank account. When you do your homework, you can save sometimes hundreds of dollars just depending on where you buy from. Be careful of scams, however; they are out there, especially on Craig's List. Look for places that offer guarantees. I used to shy away from online shopping, but now, with two kids, it's much less of a hassle. I make sure I'm careful with who I buy from and what information we provide.

Everyone has their own way of saving that works for them!! I'm always open to advice and enjoy learning new ways to save money. Luckily, my husband and I are pretty low maintenance; we realize that stuff is just stuff, and we try to remember to store up treasures in Heaven because everything we have here will be gone one day. We also believe in the power of tithing, not because we have to, but because we want to, and what we have is all because of God's blessings!! We've experience financial peace as a result. Make sure you keep a savings of more than you think you will need, too. Pay off debt and establish credit. Don't overbuy, and most of all, keep following the excellent tips of Tightwad in Training!! :o

Real Stories from Real People

 GUEST POST by Ashlie Hogan


You can read part I here

It’s September of 2009 and the shock of hearing that my husband suddenly, without any warning has been laid off from his job is really beginning to sink in. A million questions are running through my mind about how we are going to make things work… what we are going to do to support our family… and as always when things get tough I try to lean on my own strength and understanding instead of leaning into God’s hand of grace and provision. Amongst all these questions, I hear over and over again in my head… “Well if you didn’t tithe… and if you gave up your sponsorship money to world vision than that would be more money that you could live on”… but that was not God’s plan and he reminded me of that in my quiet time on several occasions.

He spoke to me and said, “Ashlie do you think I have forgotten you, because I haven’t. Do you remember several months back when you began to save money on your groceries and you wondered what to do with that money? The reason I allowed you to save the money you did on groceries all of those months was to prepare you for this season of your life… when you would have less to spend, and I still wanted you to be able to give to those who needed it.” And it was with that conversation that my husband I began to try and lean into God during this difficult time of our life and hear what he desired from us. Now I’m not here to say that this time was easy because it wasn’t, but I am here to say that we made it, and not only that, we grew closer together. God provided for our family in many ways during this time period… and allowed us to continue to sponsor our two children through world vision in the countries of the Philippines and the Dominican Republic, which we consider one of our greatest blessings.

God also showed me several different people that I could bless with groceries that I had gotten for next to nothing with coupons, and help to provide them with nutritious food in their times of need. Pretty soon a job opened up at a local technical college with very limited hours and a HUGE pay cut, but through prayer we decided that my husband should take this job; trusting that it would lead him on to better things… and once again God provided despite our lack of trust at times. Not only did God provide a job for my husband, but he also provided the promise of a better job in the future if he could finish his degree, so we set out on the journey for him to finish his degree. My husband began working on his degree part time while he taught as an instructor at the local technical college, and God continued to watch over our family. In August my husband will graduate with his associate’s degree… something he never thought he would do, but it was only by walking a difficult road of learning to trust that we got to this point. It was through these times that God taught us the valuable lessons of trusting in His plan, whether it matches up to our plan or not. In February of 2010 we welcomed little Hope Elizabeth in to our family, and she has served as a constant reminder to us of God’s provision and that He is our hope in time of struggle. I will close with a verse that God has used to encourage our family many times in these trying times, “Let us hold unswervingly to the HOPE we profess, for He who promised is faithful.”—Hebrews 10:23

Real Stories from Real People

GUEST POST by Ashlie Hogan

“Honey, I’ve been laid off from my job…” are words that you never want to hear your husband say, particularly when you have two growing boys, and another baby on the way. It doesn’t matter how many times you have said you know that the Lord will not give you more than you can handle, in THAT moment you begin to doubt that which you knew to the core of your being. You begin to experience the emotions of anger, sadness, confusion and doubt all within a few short minutes… all without wanting to make your husband feel bad, because you know it is not his fault. That is where I was one late night in September of 2009, and it was an uncomfortable spot to be… but through that God showed me how his hand of providence and provision stretches out to his children even when they can’t see it at the time.

You see months earlier my husband and I had began talking about different ways that we could try to cut monthly bills, save on power and electricity and most of all cut down on our grocery budget. Now don’t get me wrong our family had always tried to live frugally, buy what was on sale, cook more and eat out less but we still felt that the $150 I was spending on groceries every two weeks was too much. So began my quest to cut our grocery bill but still be able to feed our family healthy foods that tasted good and to eat organic whenever it was possible. Pretty soon I began buying a newspaper on Sunday and clipping coupons, but I still shopped at only one grocery store that I had always shopped at and was continually disappointed at the money I was saving. It was then that my friend Oxana, posted on facebook how she had gotten a shopping cart of groceries for a ¼ of what I would have paid for it at the time and I just had to find out how she had done it. I asked her some questions like “Where do you get your coupons, where do you shop, and how do you save that much money?” She kindly messaged me back giving me some pointers, along with a list of a few wonderful websites that I could check out… and check them out I did. At first I will admit visiting one of these websites was like trying to read Swahili without having a clue of where to begin… there were tons of codes like SS,RP, P&G and dates every where… but with a lot of time and a little bit of determination and patience things began to make more sense.

It wasn’t very long until I was buying at least three newspapers each week, printing coupons off-line, and spending at least an hour on Fridays planning out the two to three grocery stores I wanted to shop at over the weekend, along with making lists of the coupons I would need and how many of each item I would need to buy to use the coupons I had. At first my husband was skeptical, particularly on my first shopping trip when he came along and I bought over 4 boxes of cereal and he just kept saying… “But Ashlie we don’t use that much cereal in two weeks…”, but I calmly asked him to wait and see until we checked out. Much to my surprise and to his… after the cashier had wrung up all our items and taken off the stack of coupons I came armed with to the store, we had only spent $110 to feed our family of four for two weeks…. And I had saved over 50%... I was hooked!!!

In the coming weeks and months I continued to read my favorite websites, clip my coupons and plan my shopping trips and to my surprise each week my grocery bill got lower and lower, we were soon feeding our family for almost half of what we used to… and that was $75 that we could put into savings, use to buy something we needed, or better yet give to people who needed it. Now fast forward to September of 2009 when my husband has been laid off… that $75 every two weeks will begin to mean even more.

To be continued….

Real Stories from Real People

guest post written by Tammy Bennett

My husband loves the Celtic women. I didn't even know who they were until one night he called me when they were on TV raising money for the local education channel. But, for those who may not know them, they are a group of Irish women. They are not only talented musically but also very pretty. They have an awesome violinist, which is probably the best I've heard.They are accompanied by backup singers, but we were really impressed with the drums and all the extra instruments. I have to admit I was a little jealous when my husband first introduced me to them on TV, he said " Don't they sing and look like angels " of course he was trying to aggravate me.

Over the last year or two he would pull up a clip on Internet and show me or we'd see clips on TV. Well,I saw an advertisement that Celtic women would be at the BI-LO Center on Valentine's day. I thought it would be a great surprise gift for my husband if I could get tickets. I went online only to find out that tickets cost at least $169.00 or more. I thought oh well, because there was no way we could afford them. Then I remembered a friend in our frugal class that had written a letter to let the zoo know how much her kids would love to go and they sent her free tickets.

Well I knew I wouldn't get $169.00 in free tickets, but what the heck maybe I could get a discount. I wrote the person in charge of the Bi-Lo Center asking if they ever considered giving discount tickets. Only in my case we had some serious illnesses etc. that happened in 2006 that had taken us a while to recover from. I explained that I would love to be able to surprise my husband with these tickets as his Valentine present for him taking such great care of me. I actually then forgot all about the letter I sent. I came home one day before Valentine's day which was on a Sunday and my husband reminded me that I have to work second shift Sunday. He kept saying it and I kept trying to tell him how much money I had saved at the grocery store. He finally said, "You are not listening". So I said, "WHAT!" The rascal had got the mail and ripped open the envelope, which had tickets for the Celtic women concert and ruined my surprise! The tickets were totally free! Two tickets worth a total of $169.00 with a hand written letter for us to enjoy. I just praised God for His Love and Goodness. We went to the concert and had a wonderful time.

REAL STORIES FROM REAL PEOPLE

by Colleen Littleton

My name is Colleen Littleton and I have a very hard working husband Adam. We are the typical American family with 2 children and a dog. We have a house and a truck and best of all a minivan. I love being a minivan mom. We feel that we are like most other people our age in that we live pretty much paycheck to paycheck doing the best we can. I would wait until we were almost out of toothpaste, deo., shampoo, conditioner, etc. and then travel to Walmart and pay full price to get what we had to have. I would always end up spending more than I wanted to and would leave the store thinking how frustrated I was. Well then I began taking a class at church about living frugal. I must admit the first class I was overwhelmed and thought to myself I am not going to do some of the ideas that were given. I am stubborn in many ways and am a creature of habit. It did not take long at all for me to see results of simple saving ideas. I looked at each purchase as a contest and I very much wanted to be a winner. I have gone from never shopping at drugstores because I thought they were too expensive to now looking forward to going in and seeing what I can get for free or almost free. I have cabinets full of toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, deo. etc and I look forward to never paying full price again for these items. I have to thank God for blessing us in this venture because he is the ultimate provider. I want you to know that with just a little effort you can stop paying full price and start enjoying saving lots of hard earned money. Don't wait, just do it! What do you have to lose? You are already paying full price.

Do you have a success story? We would love to hear it!!!

REAL STORIES FROM REAL PEOPLE

Written by Kristie Roach

My life changing money turn around started a little over two years ago. My life was the typical cliché, new house, new cars, vacations, a new camper, and spending money with no end in sight. (1 Timothy 6:10 for the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.)

My husband started working at a family member’s construction company for a little more than minimum wage and quickly worked his way up to making close to $5,000 a month. First we purchased my car a Denali with all the bells and whistles, then my husband’s brand new truck with even more amenities than my car. We did not stop there; we had the cars and a new camper, but wanted a house. We lived in a small mobile home, and it certainly did not fit our new lifestyle. We moved into a large, beautiful lake house in a gated community with a waterfall at the entrance. We were making deals for spec homes and investments. During the time that we were acquiring everything that we thought was important to us we were neglecting God, and not going to church. Instead our weekends were spent shopping, camping, and staying out on the lake all day Saturday and Sunday. We were getting further and further away from God and His word. What is sadder than that is we were keeping our children from God through our lifestyle.

Everything seemed to be going wonderful when the economy dropped in what seemed like a day, and the housing market went belly up. My husband came in one day and said that he no longer had a job, that we had to move back to our old house, and that we would have to give up both cars. We probably could have hung in there for a while with struggling, but the money we had invested was stolen from us to the tune of around 100K. I cried and was angry. I did not understand why it was happening to us. We were decent people; we helped others in need. After a few days of a self-pity party, I started to turn to God for the first time in a very long time. I had been mad at God for so long over my childhood. I prayed and one day said “God, I understand why…I do, just please help me through this”. I did understand why, I understood that we were living outside of God’s word, and spending His money the way we wanted to. He blessed us with so much, and yet we turned from Him to a lifestyle that meant nothing and went nowhere. I decided at that time that I was not going to stray away from God again. I was going to have full trust in Him, to have full faith in Him in everything I do, and in every situation.

My husband lost his job on Thursday and got a call for an interview on Saturday went in and got the job that day! Dear friends, that is God!!! We did move back home and were able to get out from under the house and truck. The only car that was returned was my Denali. I decided to try the Dave Ramsey program, but did not have the $25 to buy the book. I went to the local library and got on a waiting list. Three weeks later the library had a copy in for me and I read it front to back, and back to front. I approached my husband with Dave’s concept, and of course he was still licking his wounds and scoured at the thought of us being anything but in the negative for years to come. I never gave up on him though. He calls it nagging…I call it consistent reminding, but I kept telling him all about the book, and how it could be us. He kept saying that we could not even make minimum payments much less save money and get out of debt. We even through around the idea of filing the horrible “B” word. I can’t tell explain how we did it, how we started to dig out of some of our debt. I can only tell you friend that it was God! My husband gave in, and started working on paying off a small credit card debt. Before we knew it that card was paid and we had freed money up to pay on another, then another, and so on. To add to this I started researching using coupons, and surfing for websites that would guide me to get the most out of coupons. I did find hip2save.com. I get all kinds of free stuff, and learned how to be a savvy shopper and walk out of the store with a cart full of groceries for pennies. I search for great deals and cheap or free activities or trips for our family.

Since then we are no where near out of the woods or even close to being debt free, but we are still working hard on it each day and relying on God. We are now in church full time, tithing faithfully (something we had never done before), watching every penny we spend, and teaching our children about God and the proper way to handle God’s money. I truly believe that we received a blessing from God, an awaking, not a hardship. He has provided everything that we ever need and could want without the fancy cars and house. He has changed our site if you will to see what is truly important. I now have a strong relationship with God, and so much has changed for the better.