Most of us never think about how we spend our money until financial situations change and force us to start thinking about these things. Saving money has always been something I've tried doing, even when my husband was out of work for six months and my pitiful job at Starbucks was the only source of income, I still tried to save money, but sometimes it was just in vain. We were struggling financially on and off for the first two years of our marriage and at that time I had no clue about coupons and my only way of actively getting a good deal was to go to the dollar store for toiletries, take home food from work that would have gone in the bin anyways and have one bus pass for both my husband and myself. I couldn't imagine what life would have been like had we had kids, those were hard times, some interesting memories, but not ones that babies and kids should have to go through. Since we had our first daughter in 2008 we've been using coupons, using double or triple coupons on one product at London Drugs (the only place you can "coupon stack" in Canada), shopping the sales, somewhat maintaining a small stockpile, heading to the clearance sections first, shopping out of season, and saving for yearly cheap vacations 10 -12 months in advance.
As cheap as our family has been and as money conscientious as we are, we have never budgeted. When we save for a vacation for example, we use the money we've saved, but we don't just count on that money alone, we add to it if need be, and there has always been a need. When it comes to food, again we don't budget. Instead, we rely on sales, coupons and the 50% off clearance section for some things, I have to stress the word some. I have a page called challenges up top and for the month of November I'm challenging my family to only spend $2300 on everything including rent, bills, food.....everything. If you think you can do it, I challenge you too.
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