I'm Jessica. I am married to a wonderfully cheap husband and I am slowly but surely being converted to his "dark side" of frugality. We have two children and a dog, and live in the suburbs of Kansas City.
I've had money and I've had none. I grew up in an upper middle class family and I never went "without". Although we had money, I NEVER learned anything about it. I was never taught how to save money and really, never taught the value of a dollar. My parents both lived a lot of life on plastic, which brings me to adulthood.
Once I got out on my own, I very quickly learned how to live within my means (and working as a waitress- that meant living VERY frugally). I went from being a "have" to a "have not". I began to live from a place of scarcity, constantly panicking about the lack of money coming in. I married young, and divorced soon thereafter, and then got to be a single mom on a limited budget. First I started living on credit cards because I wanted to live a way I couldn't afford, and anyone who has been there KNOWS that isn't a great way to live.
After a financial overhaul, I paid off the bulk of my debt and began to live in a way that was really in alignment with what I was earning. This was when I realized that the only way to have financial peace was to find a way to live the way I wanted to live, for less.
When Doug and I married we cut expenses and began to reevaluate what was really important. While we aren't living paycheck to paycheck, we really want to be debt free and live in a way that brings security and contentment. Most of our society lives on more than they have. We use credit cards to have the things we feel we deserve and we use our "things" to make us the people we are.
I'm a purse addict, I won't lie. Part of learning to live within our means meant that I needed to cut our discretionary spending. But on that end, I'm not willing to not have fun. So this blog is about finding ways to spend less on the things that I need to have, and to be able to live large for less.
