One of the biggest reasons for creating MommyLuvs2save was to create a community of moms and dads who want to help their family save money when buying essentials in order to free up money for debt repayment. My own family has paid off over $111,500 in consumer debt including credit cards, student loan debt and 2 vehicles. I am a teacher at heart. I want to use the skills that I have learned to help YOU ditch debt. I want to encourage each of you in your efforts so that one day you can feel the freedom of being debt free. I’m not quite there yet either (we still have a mortgage) so I need encouragement as well 
It can be very difficult to pay down debt. There are many temptations to spend money. We live in a culture that encourages debt and spending. In addition, expenses come up and there never seems to be any extra money for paying down debt. I want to urge each of you to participate in a challenge. Just leave a comment about one positive step you’ve taken for your family each day. Did you eat in instead of going out? Did you save money at the grocery store? Did you pay extra on your credit card? Leave a comment below and we will cheer one another on every day and every step of the way.
The challenge is to leave a comment about what YOU have done to work on getting debt free each day. One winner will be chosen to win a $50 Amazon gift card at the end of each month. To participate in the challenge you must comment on at least 10 posts during the month.
* I will also be sharing my progress from the day prior.
My Progress: I did a lot of running around yesterday. I cashed in on some of my FREEbies including $10 worth of FREE stuff at Best Buy, 6 FREE Jimmy Dean Delights bowls at Walmart and a free 6 inch sub from a local convenience store. I was kind of bummed because the little Walmart near me was out of most of what I wanted, so I had to take a trip to the bigger Walmart where I was more successful. I felt like it was a waste of time and gas going to both, but oh well. I also ran into Big Lots to snag 10 cans of diced tomatoes for $.50 each. I like to have some on hand because Ro loves chili and it’s been so cold here.
I felt so blessed yesterday being able to greet the girls from school on a snowy day with a cup of hot cocoa and a little homemade cupcake. What a luxury. If I was still working it would have been 5:30 before they got home and they would have been cranky and tired. I kind of felt blessed all day. I was reflecting on how lucky I feel to be able to have this time with the twins. How lucky we are to have a warm home to be in while it’s so cold outside. How lucky we are to have a car to drive and one another to hug. It really helps to think about all that we have been given because in reality, I don’t need a thing ! I think that’s why it’s so important for me to ditch as much debt as quickly as possible. It’s all about having the freedom to have more time together. The less debt we have, the more memories we can make.
After my little memory makers toddled off to bed I did manage to do a few surveys. I also used an Amazon credit to stock up on some groceries that should help stretch the food budget. It was a pretty decent day. I’m happy it’s the weekend and Ro is off on Monday. We have a mystery shopping lunch date scheduled at one of our favorite restaurants. Can you believe they pay us to eat $60 worth of food for lunch and give us a $5 bonus, so $65 for lunch? We always end up taking enough home for dinner. It’s a good thing it’s a mystery shop because there is NO way I’d ever pay $65 for lunch unless I was taking 8-10 people with me ~ sheesh.
What did you do? Leave a comment We’d love to hear about it You could make 2013 your year. Who will the January winner be ? We’ll see…
Sounds like you had a great day, Karen:) It snowed again here yesterday so a quiet day. I got a voucher for a free lunch at work. I got a bowl of soup for me and used the rest on snacks for lunches.
Karen, you bring up SUCH a good and important point: Too often we are focused on what we do NOT have or how much debt we have and we don’t focus on all that God has blessed us with and what is utmost important to us. Thanks for the change in perspective. I know that once in awhile I am guilty of getting caught up in the negatives of life, and need to focus on the positive. We all have ENDLESS things to be grateful for! Yesterday I ended up buying a birthday present for a bday part my son was invited to, and then I bought a baby shower gift. That was it for the spending yesterday.
We all need to count our blessings, not our bills! Yesterday I reread the cvs receipt for the hallmark cards only to realize if you bought $10. worth you got $3 in rewards. So instead of hubby going alone to cvs I went too. I got 3 more cards and after coupons just paid tax on all 6 and received $3. in rewards. Did the body wash deal that you posted and used the $6. in reward to buy 3 bottles of laundry detergent. Total spent oop 7.51 Total saved @28.91! Love it!! Still have $4. in rewards($1. green tag reward too) Thank you for posting all the great deals to help us out.
Great saying, need to count our blessings instead of our bills! I am going to tack that one on my work computer (where I do most of my complaining!)
No spend day.
I’ve been out of town for most of January, and I’ve gotten a bit lax in my drugstore deals. I need to get focused on cvs and wags again.
Karen, you rock. Simply put.
Yesterday was definitely a spend day. I bought the new oven. Thankfully I got black and didn’t want stainless since that’s an extra $100! (Seriously!?) It will be here Monday afternoon, which is awesome. I nearly started bawling when they told me the total. I mean, I know it includes the oven, 4 year service plan, tax, etc, and I get a $50 Lowe’s gift card rebate but still. I hate seeing that $$ leave. I went in and got the skinny on the new job and I think it’ll be okay. Not too horrible, other than having to hire someone–something I’ve never ever done!
The weather here was awful. It really didn’t snow just a lot of sleet. Hubs ran to the grocery store for baby formula and milk. Made dinner at home. My oldest got out of school early and want fast-food so he bought his own. Proud mama moment. The hubs did buy me some sweaters from the Loft at there half off sake. He picked out two sweaters and there pretty but that was money spent. Oh well……. going grocery shopping today if the roads are clear. Here in the country where we live they really don’t put down salt so the roads can be tricky. Off to print coupons. Hope everyone has a safe and beautiful day.
Yesterday I went to Victoria’s Secret and bought two body washes and two perfumes for $30. They were 75% off and I used a $10 birthday gift card. I put these away for Mother’s Day gifts. I also went to Loft and bought a sweater and sunglasses for 50%. And I got a free coffee to go with the coffee cake from Starbucks for my birthday. They didn’t find out until after they made the coffee that you have to get it on your birthday so they gave it to me for free and said to come back on my birthday and get another one.
Well emergency fund bit the dust when our furnace died. But we have been blessed for many years past when all our neighbors had to buy new ones! Need to work to build that back up! Thanks for posts!
Life is always so much better when you view the glass as half full rather than half empty. Still not feeling all that great, but thankful to be able to afford to take the time off and give myself some extra rest. Paid the mortgage for next month and scheduled $500 to go towards our debt on Tuesday. Always a good feeling to remove those links from our debt chain and add more color to our debt thermometer.
And as always, prayed for the ML2S readers!
Wow sounds like everyone had to buy major things this week! Well, Im in that boat as well unfortunately. We spent $130 on just copays this week…not including prescriptions…hopefully I can get everyone healthy! Then out puppy had surgery yesterday to get neutered and his tail docked…they only charged $189 didn’t think that was too bad since they originally told me closer to $250. So needless to say with all of the snow we received yesterday and today we are staying in.
Karen- you made such a wonderful point…WE are all truely blessed!!!
I also believe in seeing what you do have, not what you don’t. My twins have special needs but they are happy!! Simple things make them happy that other kids would grumble about. They don’t talk (very limited speech) but they can communicate.
I made a big pot of homemade chicken noodle soup. I even made the stock. The next night I used the extra chicken to make a chicken pot pie. I swung by Kroger yesterday to get some mega sales. I spent $28. So this wk I only spent $62 on groceries. Not bad & I am working on my stock pile.
My week has been turned around. The kids were home sick all wk & the hubby was off sick on Thurs & Fri. I haven’t been feeling good but someone needs to get things taken care of.
Had a good mail day–Loreal shampoo & conditioner & total repair, Eucerin sample & coupon, free twix q, & 4 movie tix & 4 drinks from coke.
Still have not spent anything since Jan 1 except milk once and those cheese hot dogs for 99 cents a pack that we promptly froze. Only have to make it until Feb 15…we did an expedition through the freezer and found a good number of vegetable bits so we are eating them in soup and chicken pot pie.
I think I did pretty well yesterday with coupons and rewards. I got everything on my list except meat and produce from Target because I still had my gcs to use and I paid only $11 OOP, I did a couple other errands as well. We ended up having dinner at Applebees which was dead due to the storm but I used my $25 gc that I had and it wasn’t as bad an expense. Before I started really watching it we would easily spend $50 eating out so at least with gcs and coupons we are cutting way back in that area.
I had to run back to target this morning because one of our bags got left and we were missing 3 items that I bought. I love the customer service at target so much. They are so pleasant and so much nicer than the ones at walmart. This is the 2nd time I’ve had to go to them this year already, once we had a price discrepency and I noticed it on the reciept. I took the item to customer service and the recepit and told them it was advertized on the aisle for less and he gave me the difference back with no problems. He didn’t even call for a price check. This time I just went back to the aisles and got the items (they were food so they had been put back) and went back to CS and they just handed me a bag.
I agree with you on Target’s customer service! Sadly my Target is 40 mins away, but I will gladly take that 40 minute trip than go to Walmart and deal with their sub-par customer service here. Kmart has now joined that list as well, I think.
Today ended our 5 day no-spend trend but it still wasn’t too bad. Hubby & I went out for dinner but it was only $25 and that included tip. The adoption savings is over $600 after my overtime from this week so I colored in 1 foot & 2 toes on the 2nd foot on our picture for the “downpayment”- only $7,400 left for the entire picture to be done.
Will be using coupons, gc & remaining cash for groceries tomorrow but we shouldn’t need much since last week was such a big trip. Looks like we should get some good coupons with the 5 inserts in the paper tomorrow!
Probably will go ahead & make the payment to pay off the medical bill which is due on the 1st. And that will have a debt gone-not just the minimum payment!! yay!
Awww, I love your motivational tool. Is the total $8,000? How cute coloring in baby parts to stay motivated. I’ll say a prayer it happens quick for you