The Beginning of The New Frugal Mom

Hello and welcome to The New Frugal Mom!

If you've found your way to my little corner of the blogosphere, I'm guessing that you're searching for ways to save money and save time.  I certainly hope that my blog will help you do both!

I've been a consistent (nothing "extreme" about how I use coupons!) couponer since late fall 2007.  At that time, my children were very young - six, four, and almost two years old.  Our oldest was in first grade at our local Catholic school and I was (and still am) a stay-at-home-mom.

Before the fall of 2007, I had used coupons every week but had done so in a more casual manner - I would flip through the Sunday coupons, clip the ones I thought I might use that week, then toss the inserts into my recycling bin.  During the years when my husband was active duty in the USN, I was able to save quite a bit of money using coupons while shopping at the Base Commissary where prices on name brand items are generally much lower than at grocery stores.  However, it hadn't yet occurred to me that there might be a better way to use coupons, one that was based on a long-term, strategic approach, one that maximized sale cycles and that would be capable of generating huge savings over time.

By fall of 2007, my husband and I had just settled into our new home after moving for a sixth time in a little over eleven years, first with the USN then with corporate moves.  Finally we were living in the area where we had wanted to be from the beginning of our marriage: SW Ohio where my husband had grown up and the majority of his immediate and extended family lived (and where my parents moved shortly after us so that they could also live near our family).  Moving so many times, however, had done a number on our finances.  We had bought and sold three homes before settling in new town and had taken losses on two of the sales.

Late one night, after paying bills and working on our budget forecast, I found myself wondering just how my husband and I would be able to afford sending not just one but three children through Catholic schools while still paying the mortgage, the bills, and putting money aside for our family's future.  Not to mention keeping everyone fed (including our two dogs).

I remember thinking the only way to make the numbers work for our family budget would be for me to return to the working outside the home.

And I remember thinking of my littlest guy who was just twenty-two months old and feeling sad and scared and worried all at once.  While being a stay-at-home-mom was the hardest thing I'd ever done in my working life and there were days when I felt strung out to my very.last.nerve, I didn't want to leave my children in the care of someone else during the most formative years of their young lives.

Despair crept over me and I wondered if my husband and I would have to give up our long-held goal of giving our children a Catholic education.

Before I turned off my computer that night, I hopped over to a friend's blog.  She had a cuh-razy post up about how she had gotten a ton of Glade candles for nearly free at Target by using coupons and earning Target gift cards which she then used with coupons to buy even more Glade candles and get them for nearly free.  I laughed (and boy, did I need that laugh; peeps, that Jenny is funny) but then I found myself wondering...

Just how did she do that?

I saw another blogger linked in her post, someone I hadn't stumbled upon yet while hopping from my personal blog into the wide open oceans of the blogosphere.  Jenny mentioned a linky that another blogger ran each week where people shared the deals they found with coupons.  It was called Super Savings Saturday.

I hopped from Jenny's post to Crystal's (now famous and well-deservedly so) blog, Money Saving Mom.

And friends, my eyes were opened.  

I stayed up late that night clicking and reading and clicking and reading.  I returned to her site again the next day and began to connect the dots between how coupons, when paired with store sales, could offer huge savings on not just food, but everyday items like paper products, cleaning products, over-the-counter medicines, and personal care items.

I began to search the internet for more information about coupons and store deals.  I found a great deal of information in different forums where other couponers shared their tips, their finds, and their store ad matchups.

I printed some coupons from the internet for the very first time and wondered if stores would even accept them.  I began to save all of my Sunday newspaper insert coupons every week instead of pitching them in the recycling bin.  My mom and dad began saving their Sunday coupon inserts for me as well.

And then I finally ventured out to try a few deals myself.

The first time I shopped at CVS just before Christmas, I took a stack of coupons, my ECB card, and my list of planned transactions.

I was so nervous.

At checkout as my totals kept coming down, down, down, the sales clerk was astonished with how much I was able to buy for only $6.00 (if I remember correctly, I bought about $65 worth of products) with my coupons, multiple transactions, and ECBs.

I was astonished, too.

It seemed too good to be true; surely this was just a fluke, right?  There was no way I would be able to save this kind of money every week, would I?

While I haven't always saved nearly 90% each week, I have discovered that combining consistent couponing with simple stockpiling and monthly menu planning can save me about 50% each week.  I've tracked my savings each year and as I've become more adept at consistent couponing, my savings has increased.

More importantly, though, my entire mindset toward discretionary spending has shifted.

While I was fortunate enough to be raised by parents who valued education and instilled in me a strong work ethic as well as a solid dose of good old Yankee frugality and while my husband and I have long been savers and investors rather than spenders, I never realized just how far I could stretch a dollar by combining sales and coupons - and not just on groceries and household items, but on everything from clothing purchases to car maintenance to restaurants and travel.

Couponing has changed the way I look at a dollar and my family's financial future has grown stronger as a result.

Because I believe in the power of blogging, the power of everyone having a voice, sharing information, and helping others, I started The New Frugal Mom in January 2008 (I took a hiatus from June 2008 to December 2008 and relaunched the blog in it's present form in January of 2009).  I've been able to generate a small side income this blog, social media gigs, and other ventures, money that has helped reduce our debt, helped pay for emergencies, and helped our long-term goals.


Today, all three of our children are enrolled at our local Catholic school and I am so thankful that this number one priority for our family is financially achievable.

I can say with absolute confidence that without discovering the dollar-multiplying power of couponing, achieving the dual priorities of giving our children a Catholic education while still aggressively investing for our retirement and their future education simply would not be possible without my returning to a full-time job.   

While my husband and I have several financial goals we have yet to achieve, I have no doubt that we will one day cross those goals off our list.

Why such certainty?

Because the beginning of the new frugal mom - not just for me, but for YOU, my fellow new frugal moms - is just the start of a healthier financial life!


I wish you much luck on your frugal journey - thank you for taking the time to read a little about mine.  ;-)