updates and thoughts

Wow I can't believe how many caring people are out there.  I thank everyone for there response to my last entry.  I would like to add more to my ramblings to give more information. 

I am not a total spendthrift.  Most of the time I try to be frugal and even a tightwad.  I do have my days where I slip though.  I do have a long way to go.

First off I have the book The Complete Tightwad Gazette.  I love it and have read it twice.  I just need to figure out what I have time to impliment into our life.

All of my daughters clothes (except what she has received as gifts from others) have come from yard sales, thrift stores, and consignment shops.  I've had a hard time finding shoes in these places so those have come from Walmart.  The same is true for her toys and books.  We do use disposible diapers because of daycare, but I use coupons religiously for those.   My husband and I really only buy clothes for ourselves when we receive gift certificates for Christmas and birthdays.

We just bought our house and our mortgage payment is only $85 more per month than what our rent payment was.  I have always hated paying for things that I will not own.  We actually got a deal on the house because we bought it from an Estate.  We paid about 75% of what it is actually worth.  It has very good insulation and brand new Thermopane windows so we aren't losing much heat.  A friend of ours gave us an older woodstove and a winters worth of wood, so our fuel oil is only a supplement.  What started us on getting deeper into debt was having to buy paint for the whole house.  The woman that had lived there was a smoker and painting was a must.

I have slacked a little with my frugal grocery shopping.  My biggest mistake has been letting my husband go grocery shopping.  He will spend $70 and come home with enough food for about 2 or 3 meals and then ice cream, beer, chips etc.  He is one of my biggest problems all around.  He doesn't understand the concept of frugality...it makes him feel poor and deprived.  We have a Save-A-Lot and there is an Aldi's in the city I work in.  We don't have anything like a day old bread store though.  I recieved a membership to Sam's club for my babyshower, but only used it once.  The closest Sam's is 50 miles away and we didn't really benefit at all from the things they sold there.

My husband works for the cable company so we get our cable and internet free.  They also have a digital phone service that we would only have to pay $20 a month for but that isn't available in our area yet.

Lets see what else have we done to be frugal.....oh yes, all of our furniture has been given to us for free.  Some of it isn't in the best shape, but with a little one a new couch would be stained in no time.  My dad is a contractor so he has helped with repairs and will help if anything major goes wrong in the future.  He also does our oil changes on our cars.  I buy gas on sale days.  I buy all of our shampoo etc. at the dollar store.  I'm sure there is more.

I will post anything else I can think of and also my goals for what else we can do to be frugal.  Any ideas are welcome.

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