I gave up clipping coupons because it seemed like I spent more money when I used them, I do try to always buy sale items only & have taught myself a hard lesson of patience, what I want or need will eventually go on sale. I buy all of my own clothes at thrift stores and garage sales this doesn't bother me a bit, I am willing to make this sacrifice so I have more $$$ to spend on my two teenage sons clothing.

Like a few others posted I do wish my parents would of taught me some financial/budgeting skills as I had none and have had to learn them the hard way. The same goes for my EH he always did the budget and $$$ so it wasn't until I was a single divorced parent of 2 in my late 30's that I had control of my own money or I guess I should say my money had control over me. Not having any personal financial skills or a budget caused me to rack up some stupid debt in addition to the debt created by my divorce. To make a long story short I wish I would of had a family member sit down with me and teach me these budgeting & financial skills, saved more $$$ for sons college, and started Dave Ramsey's TMMO a couple of years ago.

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Me Mom
DS Matthew
DS Patrick
Family Pugs Disney & Parker
Completed the Disneyland Half Marathon 09/03/07.

I am trying to quit paying attention to this stuff too. I think it makes me want to spend more!

Also, I have taken Dave Ramsey's TMMO and FPU and feel totally different about money, but I still realize sometimes I am more lazy about watching myself then at other times. I feel like I lose some of the resolve. If only I did not have to use cash at the grocery store, if only I could by the cute purse that is not within my budget... sometimes I want to buy things when I want to, not when I've saved for it, but in the long run I've been able to afford more by saving ahead and watching my cash flow plan.

Erica

I, too, believe that I would be frugal even if I had more money. I just believe that I wouldn't spend as much time thinking about it if I had been wise in my savings & investing early on and hadn't gotten "behind" in the scheme of things - planning for retirement, college educations, etc. But, who knows. I can't go back and change anything. If I had more money, I might just sit around and worry about losing it! Ha!

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Homeschooling Mom to Daniel (12 Years), Andrew (9 Years), Stephen (7 Years) and Emily (3 Years)

*************Visit AyeOhKay's Blog - "Frugal & Fun"**************

It is so frustrating to be in the hole that we're in, where we simply do not have even enough to cover the necessities every month, let alone things like overdue dentist appointments and new car tires. It's funny to look back a few years to when we rented a tiny apartment before we bought our house, (and DH and myself were both making more money) and remember how we spent money so much more freely, like going out to eat at least once a week, and impulse-buying DVDs at the store. I wish we had been saving more then, obviously. But I am so thankful that we DO have a house, and cars that run, and we're not going hungry by any means, and a blissful marriage and a healthy baby on the way. So many people don't have any of that. So in the meantime, we're trusting that the Lord will provide for us as yet another week goes by.

Not really... and no, we're not "well off" by any means. I am grateful for what we have and that hubby has a full-time job to support our family. I figure if the bills are paid, we're clothed, food is on the table, and we have some $ going into our savings acct. the rest is just "icing on the cake". We live within our means and know we could be SO much more worse off... so I try to be grateful for what we do have instead of upset over what we don't have. Kwim?

I get very tired of thinking about it all the time.

I don't know how not to think about it. I want to be able to be a little more free in how we spend but I always worry, "What if I buy this now, and then something happens and we won't be able to pay for it, then it will be my fault." etc.

Last night is a perfect example. Dh and I were going to go out for dinner for my birthday. We go once a year to a nice restaurant, so it's not like we over do it. All day I kept thinking I didn't want to go. I didn't want to spend $80 on dinner when there would be nothing to show for it the next day. So instead, I suggested we use our coupons we had for a free movie and we did that instead. Then afterwards dh asked if I wanted to go to Starbucks for a drink. Again I said, "Let's just go home. I can make us a coffee there."

So we saved $100 on not going to dinner, going to a free movie, and going home for coffee, but why? Because I am always thinking about saving money.

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Good for you KathrynHannah. I know it might feel like a bummer that you didn't spend the money on the treat, but if it would have made you miserable then what would the point have been.

Thankfully we do have enough money to pay our bills and also save for the time when DH's contract runs out. It makes me shutter to think of all the money we let slip away in the years gone by, but I try to focus on how far we have come now. As I said to my DH who worries about money all the time, "aren't we lucky that we have the knowledge and skills to manage our money, and prepare for leaner times". I'm trying to spin it for him now to show it positively, that we are in control and should be proud.

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Children Learn What They Live, And Live What They Learn.
What have you taught your child today?
When life throws you a curve ball...it's up to you how you catch it!

I think it is sad if you think about money so much that you cannot enjoy a once a year treat

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~Happiness is a large family~

I have to agree.. We go out for dinner/movie/coffee/etc more than once a year and I don't feel guilty.. unless the $$ should be going to something else. But after bills/rent/savings, etc.. are all paid... no guilt! Life's too short! $ is here not only to save and take care of, but to *ENJOY*!!!

I think you should go out for a belated birthday dinner! Even if it's not an $80 meal, even a $40 meal in a nice restaurant is a nice treat!!! And i'm sure you deserve it!!

Dh and I are paying off our equity line, and that's what I would have done differently, not run the thing up in the first place. Hopefully if we chip away at it, it will be done by this time next year.

I have to say, dh and I were older when we got married, and we had so many advantages that most younger people don't have. Not that I wouldn't have liked to get married earlier, but hey that's the way it went!! I already had a condo with a huge down payment on it when I was single, so we had a large down payment on a house when we got married.

When my mom died I inherited, so we paid our house off, then bought a larger house. Then we bought an even Larger house, this one. Our 2nd house was bought when I got pregnant with ds. It was big but manageable, but the mistake we made was it had a two story family room, and we never got used to it. It never ever felt cosy, it always felt so open - we just didn't like it. It was something we never thought about until we moved it and slept there. Our neighbors were horrible too, they used to have wild parties and did god knows what at them. So we looked for a place to move, and we figured, well if we are going to move, we are not going to get the same size house, we're going up. So we did. But it is pretty unmanageable.

The funny thing is that wnen we didn't have the money, we Never dreamed we'd be living in a development, - we were anti-development, etc. Well, when we inherited, come to find out we were not anti-development, we were jealous, we were, and when we got the money, we got a house in a development.

Now dh and I are already talking about our Next house!! We need to stay many more years in order to make some kind of profit, and that's okay. But we are definitely going to downsize, and have the woods for our backyard, and something definitely more manageable. Life lessons!!