Stretching a Dollar

Really, only 4 weeks left of summer? And to think that I had planned to have a fantastic summer for my kids, which really amounted to allowing them to swim their hearts out in the backyard. No, not in an in-ground pool, silly, but in a metal-frame liner pool that has decided to start leaking. Still, it's fun because it gets them wet and wears them out.

The biggest problem I'm having with the 6 week summer here is the lack of funding. I think that's the most common denominator of my life. No money or, more accurately, not enough money. As a stay-at-home mom for going on 10 years, I've learned to stretch the dollar just about as far as it can without ripping it in two. With back-to-school just around the corner, it's not the time to blast through cash when two of the kids need new backpacks, all need new shoes, all will need an insane amount of school supplies and I like to treat the kids to at least one new fashionable back-to-school outfit. Yeah, I'm one heck of a crazy spender, eh?

When I consider that we have 3 lovely kids, a nice 4-bedroom house, 3 cars (okay, they all have over 100,000 miles but no one's counting except me!) and are doing it all on one paycheck, I can't help but applaud myself for surviving the stay-at-home crunch. We knew it would be hard going into it, but we've done quite well. This fall all three of my kids will be in public school, gulp, and I will enter into a 2-yr-nursing program, which means that my time at home is on countdown mode. It's a surreal position. I never thought I'd get to this point and honestly I never wanted to. If God would grant me the request to rewind the time back to the birth of my first child, I'd do it in a heartbeat, as being a young mom and raising three amazing, healthy kids has been the highlight of my life.

However, I'm not as sad as I thought I'd be. I thought I'd be teary eyed and wistful, considering the last of my babies is about to head off to the Kindergarten. I'm a little excited, really, not to the point that I'm ready to shove them all out the door and deadbolt it behind them, but excited for the next chapter and not dreading it the way that I thought I would. In two years, God-willing, I'll have a job that actually pays money. What a crazy idea that is!

Looking back at the hardest years of buying diapers and looking at my current situation, here is a little list of money saving tips that made the biggest impact:

1. Don't keep up with others. Sometimes you have to let friendships go that pressure you into making purchases, always eating out, always shopping, always spending, spending, spending.
2. Pay attention to your grocery bill. I plan 2-weeks worth of dinner ideas, clip coupons and shop accordingly. The menu planning made the single biggest impact on our grocery bill.
3. Budget everything, except for a small amount of spending money. Gas, groceries, utilities, clothing, entertainment, etc. If you have to, go to the envelope method which is when you take X number of envelopes, write what their use is for and put the allotted amount of cash in each. This is a good wake-up call for a lot of people. When you go to the grocery store with $200 cash and no back-up plan, such as a debit or credit card, you will be much more careful about what you throw in your cart!
4. Learn how to say "No" to your kids and stick to it.
5. Rent movies and only go to the theater for really special shows.
6. Watch how often you eat out...consider how much that $30 price-tag would have bought at a grocery store.
7. Accept all hand-me-downs. Accepting doesn't mean you have to keep them all! Keep what you like and pass the rest along.
8. Be aware of recurring monthly charges, as they add up really quickly. Make a list and see who you're paying and why. Ask if you think it's worth it and go from there.
   
9. Save up for big purchases. In the long run, you'll appreciate it more if you had to wait 8 months pinching penny's versus charging it in an insant, plus you'll be exercising your discipline for future purchases.
   

There are a million and one ways to save money, this is just a quick list of the things I've done over the years to survive on one paycheck. It's been an educational journey and I don't regret one second of it! Happy summer!