Starting From Scratch - A working mom's attempt at frugal living

If you're reading this, welcome and thanks for finding me! As you can tell, I'm just getting started. The world of blogging is new to me but it feels like a great way to start this journey I am beginning.

Let me tell you a little about myself and what journey I plan to take - and hope to take you along with me!

I am 30 years old (originally typed as 'just turned 30' when my daughter informed me that 3 months ago is not 'just.' I stand corrected). I have been married for going on 7 years and have a tween daughter, who is now apparently my editor-in-chief!

I work outside the home full-time (and usually by full-time I mean well beyond 40-hours a week). Often I find that leads me to picking up items out of convenience, inwardly cringing because I know it's not healthy for my family.  Time, is always the reason (insert, excuse).

When I go to the grocery store, I always have that slow panic that creeps up as the total keeps going higher knowing I've spent more than I've planned.  I've clipped coupons, to no avail (not that they don't work, I jut haven't been able to make them work), buy store brand usually, and yet every month the food bill goes higher.

Tomorrow, I'll do better. Tomorrow, I'll menu plan. Tomorrow, I'll start a budget ... Tomorrow.

Well - Tomorrow is here! 

It's near the end of August and I just made my last trip to the grocery store Sunday for this month.  Over the last few weeks, I've been searching and reading on ways to help lower my costs, but of course, I don't even know what my costs is!

Step one was trying to get an idea of what this is. My method was not an exact science because I did not keep any records, however, I went through my bank statement and added up the totals from every grocery store trip, fast food outing and convenience store stop (that didn't include gas - usually the total gave it away).

The grand total was jaw-dropingly, astonishingly, shocking!  I honestly questioned if the calculator knew how to add, even going back and adding it manually - twice!

We are a family of 3 and we do have friends over often to dine with us, nothing fancy, just our every day meals, but that certainly should not account for how much we've spent this last month. I will give myself a little credit and say that usually, we do not eat out anywhere near as much as we have this month, and one of my grocery store trips included all of the daunting back-to-school supplies, which did increase our spending.  Again, because I kept no record of what I spent I can't separate that out, but my best estimate is that it was probably around $130 spent on supplies (we'll leave that for a different post another day). 


Are you ready?  In one month, family of 3, combined spending from grocery stores, fast food/restaurants and convenience stores (not including gas), we spent ....

 

$1,138.02

Are you still with me? Did you fall out of your chair too? I know the number, but typing it in big, bold, red letters makes me want to pass out all over again!

Take out my school supply shopping and it really doesn't get any better, around $1000.  I know, I know - don't rush down to the comments yet.  Myself and I have already had this lecture. 

Most of my life, if I've considered the word 'frugal' it was almost as an ugly word. However, this number had me taking a hard look at my misconceptions.  In all honesty, I've been really (not just toying with the idea) considering what does it mean to be frugal, and what is frugal living for the last couple months.

And it's very appealing. It's very adjustable.  What it means to me, may look different than what it means to you.  In a nutshell, it's having a full and more enjoyable life by taking out all the things that crowd and steal from that goal.

I can think of many better and enjoyable things my family and I can do with that money then wasting it on, especially, fast food and convenience items and pre-packaged things that offer poor nutrition and do far more harm to my families' health.

In starting this journey of being more frugal and living more simply, I want to make more things 'homemade' and eat less processed items. I want to feel good about what I feed my family.  I want to feel good about what example I set for my daughter on being a wife and a mom.

I'm not going to totally overhaul our lives overnight; I know that will lead to failure. I'll focus on pieces at a time. Right now, for my family, it's the grocery budget. It's not just about a ridiculous amount of money spent but it's also about making more nutritious and healthy meals for my family. I'll share my plans and research with you in the next post.

I'm no expert and won't ever claim to be; I'm just a mom and wife with a busy life who's trying to make it better and more enjoyable.

So why did you stumble across my blog? Maybe you've been doing this all along and can offer advice or maybe you're looking for ways to live more simply too and we can learn and grow together.  No matter your story, I hope you'll join me on this journey!