As far back as I can remember, my house never was the house that had a ton of food. I can remember being so hungry I could eat anything, then look in the fridge and there being nothing I would eat. My parent's fridge always was, and still is, pretty bare. Even the snack cabinet was sparse. My parents were never much into snacks or anything, so they never kept any on hand. However, at my best friend's house, her mom had pantry full of just snacks.
Her fridge was always full of food (both good and bad for you foods). I loved going to her house after school and on weekends. I remember going in to the house, walking right by her mom, go right into the snack pantry, grab a candy bar, then come back in to the living room to say hi to her mom. Her mother always got a kick out of me doing that. I was a third daughter to her so she never minded me coming over and hanging out. I always vowed that when I grew up and had my own house, I would have a kitchen full of food (good and bad for you foods) and that my husband and kids would never go hungry for whatever their hearts desired.
Her fridge was always full of food (both good and bad for you foods). I loved going to her house after school and on weekends. I remember going in to the house, walking right by her mom, go right into the snack pantry, grab a candy bar, then come back in to the living room to say hi to her mom. Her mother always got a kick out of me doing that. I was a third daughter to her so she never minded me coming over and hanging out. I always vowed that when I grew up and had my own house, I would have a kitchen full of food (good and bad for you foods) and that my husband and kids would never go hungry for whatever their hearts desired.
Fast forward to 8 years after I graduated from high school. I was living at home with my parents, and my fiancé (now husband) was living with his parents. We had been looking for a house to live in and finally found a condo that we loved at first sight. We ended up buying the condo in the height of the market and moved in to the condo. We decided to finance it 100% so we could still afford to buy furniture for the condo and still pay for our wedding at the same time. We both went from paying no rent, no bills or anything. My now husband had only a truck payment, and I only had a student loan payment. Nobody told us what it was going to be like to be homeowners. The first month after we moved in, we started getting all the bills. Gas bill, electric bill, water bill, cable bill, etc. At the time, I had never needed to draft up a budget, nor did I know how to do it. I was pretty much in charge of all the finances of the condo since I was a math wiz and hubby, not so much. I remember crying myself to sleep every night for months trying to figure out how in the world we could afford to live in this condo. At the time, I wasn't making too much money, but my husband always make a decent income. I saw all my friends living in homes they owned, actual houses, and he we were in a modest 1100 square foot condo and in way over our heads. We didn't buy anything extravagant. We got our living room furniture for about $400 at Levitz. It was a sofa, loveseat and a recliner. All basic, no bells or whistles. Since we both play poker, we got a cheap poker table as our dining room table. We bought some plywood to put on top to make it a table to eat on. Then we picked up some chairs and voila, there was our dining room. We bought a TV and the stand came with it, so that was good. We also got cheap end tables at Walmart that are so hideous, but it did the job. We put in our old bedroom sets (my bed, and his drawers). It was pretty much all we could afford to do at the time.
When I started putting together all our bills, and seeing our expenses in comparison to our income, it just made me cry. We had too much going on, and not enough coming in. I started teaching myself how to budget, how to negotiate our bills, etc. I came across a couponing thread in the Grocery Challenge on MSN Money and decided to check it out. These girls, called 'hounds' were really good at grocery shopping! I remember for just us two at one point spending over $200 a WEEK! Since this was an expense that these 'hounds' say is the easiest one to cut, I was intrigued. At first I was skeptical about being a couponer. Can I pull it off? Would I fail, and then become even more depressed then I already was? At this point, I would have tried anything. So I gave it a whirl.
Well.....what happened next?! We'll have to stay tuned to see how things worked out for Beth. Come back tomorrow to see if those coupons actually helped her get on a path to being an ultimate frugalista.
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