How Do I Do It: How We Started

Our frugal story started a long time ago. When I was young my parents raised me in a house where the only debt we had was debt for a house. My dad joined the military to help pay for college so he didn’t have school debt and he worked hard to be able to always pay cash for items other then the house. After many years of watching them, I decided that I was only ok with debt for 2 things, school tuition and a house. This has changed just a bit in the last year, but it is still my general rule.

in about 2000 my father decided they should be 100% debt free and they put everything extra they had into paying off the house. in 2004 they payed off the house 100%. My parents were debt free just after my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. I felt like the Lord had prepared my dad so he could provide the best life for my mom after he passed. He lived for another year and then passed away.

There are many people who feel like paying off a home is a bad thing because you don’t get a tax break, but I see my mom and how much more money she has to live in each month because she doesn’t have a house payment and I am amazed at the freedom she has. Yes she has taxes that she has to deal with once a year, but if she saves money a little each month it is no big deal that once a year. It sure is a lot less then she was spending before. After all this happened I realized the freedome that comes with living your life in your means. I realized how blessed you could be by the Lord by following what he teaches and living your life responsibly. This includes all aspects of your life.

In June of 2005 (my father passed in March of that year) My husband and I were married. We wee blessed from day one with apartments where we could pay month to month, and we lived with 1 car and made it work. We did this so we would be able to live debt free during our marriage…or at least as much as we could. Prior to us getting married my husband had bought a car with a loan. We worked hard and payed it off as quickly as we could. We both worked and went to school full time while having 1 car and we had a bike. We took turns with who had the car and who rode the bike. We made it work so we could save my income as much as possible because we knew a time would come when I wouldn’t be able to work anymore because of kids.

6 months after getting married I became pregnant with our son. Matthew switched jobs and we were able to get benefits though his work. We knew this was a blessing for us so we could continue to save money and provide for us once I had the baby. In Sept. of 2006 We were blessed with our son. I stopped working and we lived off my husbands $900 a month job and whatever we had saved. After a few short months of this we knew it wouldn’t last long and we would have to do something differently to keep us out of debt. It was at that time I started looking for ways to save and make money at home so I could continue to do what we felt was right and be home with the kids.

How did your frugal life start??