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Frugal Living Takes Planning and Thought…

April 7, 2014 by jlpenner Leave a Comment

And these days I sometimes have no time for thinking or planning!!

I’ve wanted to write this post for quite some time but in an ironic twist the same reason I wanted to write this post was also keeping me from writing this it.

If you have been with Frugal Living Mom for some time you may know that over 4 months ago my husband and I became foster parents to two little girls, 3 and 4 years old, that we are going to adopt.

We received the news that the girls would be coming one week before they arrived- so you can guess that that was a whirlwind. And it did not stop after they got here. Life has not been the same since.

Here’s the thing, along with that whirlwind I found frugality was really hard. Because saving money doesn’t just come easily- it takes time, planning and thought. Basically, especially at the beginning I found myself in the grocery story just throwing things in the cart, like a madwoman, with no real thought to price. When I got to the check out I was pretty shocked at the total- but was I suppose to do!!? I had no time to check the ads- and definitely no time for couponing.

Also See: Basic Steps for Setting up a Budget

And the girls needed things that we didn’t have. We were really blessed to have our friends from church throw us an impromptu “baby shower” the day before the girls came. We got a ton of Target giftcards. But again- no time for waiting for sales, shopping around, or buying used. So I can’t remember how many trips that first couple weeks there were to Target where we spend over $100- I kept thinking “if I could just get this at a thrift store- it would be like $2 instead of $20!! Or if I have just remembered that coupon.. alas”

As time has gone on things have gotten better. I am back to spending much less at the grocery store and I have time to at least look at the ads and do a bit of planning. But to be honest- more often that not I end up running out of time and just forgoing some of those trips to get sale items.

About a month and a half ago Longs drug switched over to CVS here in CA and in the process they decided not to do Extra Bucks for a month. Because of this I lost all my Extra Bucks. They are doing them again but my momentum was gone and I am just less motivated to go to CVS. But I know it will come back- I just need to see the right freebies.

So all this is to say that I am slowly recovering and getting back to my life. Sometimes we just have tremendous changes in our lives, be it a new baby, a marriage, a new job, a job loss..etc.- it happens to all of us. And we should not beat ourselves up if we have a hard time with “business as usual”. Because business is not usual. We will get back to it- and if we don’t we will develop a new normal- and knowing us, that will probably involve saving money.

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Filed Under: Series on Frugal Living

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