About four years ago, my husband was diagnosed with MS, Multiple Sclerosis and could not go back to work.

I had no idea what I was going to do with our finances. I needed that income! Our children were 1 and 8 at the time. Hunter, my eight year old was playing sports. I knew we couldn’t afford it next season. I even had to borrow money from my mom just to pay our mortgage.

So what could I do?

The first thing I did was call our mortgage company and asked for a loan modification. Wow, what an experience this was! There was a ton of paperwork to fill out. Lots of papers to copy, bills and such. Lots of phone calls. It took over a year and us finally not paying a month of mortgage to get it to finally go through, but it saved us $500 a month on our mortgage.

While waiting for the modification to go through, I started clipping coupons and visiting numerous coupon websites out there. I only bought foods on sale and /or with a coupon. We planned our meals around the sale flyer. I had never done anything like this before.

We stopped going out to eat, stopped going to the movies. I think there was a two year period where we did not see a movie in the theaters. We rented instead and made our own pizzas. I stopped buying paper towels as much and napkins completely. I made my own napkins instead.

I bought as much clothing as I could at Goodwill or yard sales. I already liked to do this on occasion, but made it a point to go more often. Hunter’s school uniforms were all from there. That Christmas for my 2 year old daughter, most of her gifts were from yard sales. She had no clue and loved them just as much as if I bought them at full price!

Once the modification took place, it was a help, but we were still in need of more income.

Another year later, his disability kicked in and we could breath again! I paid back my mom and paid off some credit cards that had increased.

But you know what? I still clip coupons, we still make our own pizzas and rent movies and I still shop at thrift stores. Even though we have the extra money I don’t want to spend it! I almost think I may be too frugal, can that be? We bought a new home and now I need to start planning for our retirement. It seems like a long way off, but I want to at least start.

I’m hoping this will help teach our kids to save money. It’s so hard for them to understand that money really doesn’t grow on trees.

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Anne

I'm a mother of 2 who likes to get involved in too much! Besides writing here I started a non-profit, I'm on the PTO board, very active in my community and volunteer in the school. I enjoy music, reading, cooking, traveling and spending time with my family. We just adopted our 3rd cat and love them all!

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