7 surprising things that have totally saved us money.

ok, i want to be completely honest here: my absolute #1 pet peeve with the majority of personal finance/frugality type bloggers is that they tend to make saving money into a neat little system and say that their way is the only way and as long as you do exactly what they say your money problems will disappear. well, i shouldnt have to tell you thats a huge load of bologna. there are as many different ways to save money as there are people on earth. and depending on the needs and preferences and even location of your family, some of the traditional "money saving tips" end up doing the exact opposite. 
it can be really frustrating, trying to figure out how to make your budget work, researching different ideas and having them not work at all. i cant even tell you how many times thats happened to us. so in the interest of showing the other side of things, and maybe help encourage anyone out there who is not having good luck with the typical frugal living tips, heres a list of a few of the more surprising ways weve saved (a lot) of money: 
quitting coupons. i used to be big on coupons, but theyre a lot of work for not a lot of savings, plus i had to buy newspapers/paper/ink and keep all of the coupons organized... one day i lost my coupon book at sprouts and never looked back. surprisingly, our grocery spending went down because i was just buying what we needed and not trying to work in the things i had coupons for. 
ditching the "normal" grocery store. about a year and a half ago i stopped shopping at vons and just bought groceries at sprouts. the grocery bill went down like $20 a week. i was like "wait what how is that possible because its vons that has the crazy sales", then i realized that everything else at the regular store is marked WAYYY up to compensate for that cheap cereal. 
avoiding thrift stores/yard sales, etc. one of the most important things that took me way too long to learn is this: if you dont need a thing, no matter how cheap it is, buying it is just a waste of money. now we only go to thrift stores if were dropping stuff off or my sister calls me frantic that theres a gorgeous vintage emmaljunga pram at salvation army that i have to buy RIGHT NOW. 
getting rid of as much as possible.  embracing minimalism and getting rid of as much as we possibly can (which were still in the process of, apparently this never ends) taught us that we dont actually need about 90% of the stuff we think we do. so we buy about 90% less than we used to, saving about 90% of the money we spent on clothes and miscellaneous house stuff (mostly at thrift stores). 
not shopping at dollar stores. this kind of goes along with the thrift store one, except that basically everything at dollar stores is either so crappy you just have to replace it with the more expensive version of the thing you were trying to save money on, or (in the case of food and cleaning supplies) its so small/watered down that you have to buy 10X the amount youd buy at target for like 50 cents more. 
my gluten free diet. being gluten free forced us to pay more attention to what we eat and basically only eat fresh, homemade food because gf packaged food is absurdly expensive. also, we have WAY less options for eating out so we eat out WAY less than we used to. 
moving back to california. southern california has a reputation for being the most expensive place on earth, and maybe it is (our one bedroom apartment costs literally twice as much as the much nicer one bedroom duplex we rented in northern arizona), BUT were in a MUCH better position financially, partly because james makes way more money here but mostly because we need way less stuff, utilities arent a million dollars, and we dont have to drive up and down a mountain to get anywhere. 
long story short, saving money isnt a one size fits all thing. just because something works for one person, does not mean it will work for you. you just might find savings in the most surprising of places. i know we have. 
have you had any surprising money saving decisions? id love to hear about them in the comments! 

nine great things to do when youre broke.

when i say that were broke, i dont mean it in the way that people tend to mean it (as in, that we made plenty of money but we spent it all so we cant buy some expensive thing we want), i mean that were broke. im going to be real here: its january (right when the slowest part of the year for jamess work starts), the spring semester is about to start (meaning, $$$ for childcare and supplies), we just came out of one of jamess work years at work ever (despite the fact that he makes over twice as much per hour as he did when he started), AND instead of using our tax refund to pay off our credit card and start saving for a house.... we need to shop for a new car. this is not a great time to be our bank account. but thats not the point of todays post. 

my point today is, that sometimes the money situation just sucks. it happens to the best of us (some of us more than others), and its not entirely under our control. but it doesnt have to be the end of the world. in fact, these times can be incredibly productive, and (dare i say it...) enjoyable(?), if you know how to spend them wisely. 

since ive got lots of esperience in this department, here are a few handy suggestions of ways to make the most of the broke times:

take a long, hard look at your bank statements. 

its easy to lose track of your money (especially if you never use cash), and its really helpful to take the time to take a serious look at exactly where your money is going and decide if youre happy with that. 

make a list of your hopes, dreams, and priorities (short term and long term).

even though it seems like an impractical or unrealistic thing to do, figuring out exactly the kind of life you want is a great thing to do when youre broke, so that you can start figuring out how to take steps to make that happen when you arent quite so broke anymore. 

look for expenses to drop. 

once you have a good idea of where youre money is going and whats really important to you, look really closely and see where you can cut back: first to help out in the short term until the money situation gets better, but also to help in the long term to free up money for the things you really want in life. 

break bad habits. 

maybe you have some habits that arent so great. maybe you buy lunch every day because you dont want to make it ahead of time, maybe you binge on netflix to avoid doing real work, maybe you go to starbucks twice a day. and maybe these habits are also costing you a lot of money. using the money as a motivation to break these habits can be a great way to kick them for good. 

declutter. 

decluttering is a great thing to do when youre broke for three reasons: 1. its totally free, 2. youll probably find some stuff worth selling (see my post about doing exactly that), and 3. theres nothing like confronting all the stuff you own (and spent money on) that you dont like/use to really change your perspective on spending. 

look for potential side hustles. 

obviously if moneys tight, it doesnt hurt (at all) to look into ways to make some more. maybe an actual second job is out of the question (like it is for james), but it doesnt take much research (ahem, pinterest) to find hundreds of ideas to try and get to the one thats right for you. 

go outside. 

not only is outside 100% totally free, but spending time out in nature is a perfect way to take a break and just think about things that arent money. 

use things up.  

one of my favorite things to do when moneys tight is to challenge myself to see how long we can go without buying anything: using up all the leftover bits of toiletries and cleaning products that accumulate and getting creative with recipes to use up as much groceries as possible. its a fun little game and a nice double whammy of saving a little money and also clearing out a little clutter. 

be thankful for what you have. 

seriously. money problems are stupid and they suck and its so, so easy to get stuck in a mopey black hole of self-pity but really, there are so many things to be thankful for. taking a few minutes to focus on those things can make things a lot easier. 

im not saying hard times have to be fun, but what i am saying is that they dont have to be all bad. 

what do you do to get through tough financial times? 

grocery shopping myths + the truth behind them.

everybody eats, so everybody needs to buy groceries. it seems like it should be a super straightforward thing, but in all honesty, learning to buy groceries (without going broke and/or eating junk al the time) was one of the hardest "adult skills" i had to learn not only are there about ten million variables when it comes to grocery shipping, there are a lot of "rules" and "methods" out there that are "supposed" to help make shopping faster/easier/cheaper/whatever. the main problem with a lot of these rules/methods/whatever, is that they dont really account for the fact that not all families have the same needs/preferences, and they definitely dont account for the fact that grocery costs/options vary widely depending on where you live (trust me, i could write a novel on the differences between buying groceries in rural arizona vs. southern california). 

over the past five years, ive tried quite a few of these different "rules" and "methods" that frugal living bloggers share promising huge grocery savings and frankly... theyre chock full of lies. ok maybe not like, malicious lies, more like well-meaning myths that got passed around without really checking how factual they actually are. so before i get started with sharing tips and tricks for eating healthy on a budget, here are a few of the most common "grocery myths" and the truth behind them: 

myth: you have to use coupons. 

truth: coupons are actually not an easy way to save money. can they be helpful? absolutely, but coupons alone will not solve your grocery budget troubles (trust me, its been over a year since i last clipped a coupon and were spending less on groceries than ever before). 

myth: you have to keep a database of prices and memorize "price cycles" 

truth: not really. if youve ever watched "extreme couponers" or read a lot of frugal living type blogs they talk a lot about these two things. frankly, both of these are HUGE time investments that may not be all that worth it (unless you live entirely off packaged foods). 

myth: you have to shop at a lot of stores. 

truth: nope (i only shop at one!) technically, if you wanted to get the BEST possible price on EVERY SINGLE INDIVIDUAL ITEM you ever buy, then yeah, youll need to go to a lot of stores, but will this save money in the long run? probably not. 

myth: you have to buy in bulk. 

truth: it depends. im going to be completely honest: there are a TON of benefits to buying things (food and otherwise) in bulk, BUT its not necessarily practical for everyone/every thing. weve gone through phases of buying a lot in bulk and not buying anything in bulk and... its kind of a wash. 

myth: saving money on groceries is hard and time consuming. 

truth: absolutely not. again going back to the extreme couponers and frugal living bloggers, they make it way more complicated than it needs to be. i promise, the more you simplify your grocery shopping, the less youll spend, and the less youll want to rip your hair out. 

myth: healthy food is too expensive. 

truth: junk food is actually WAY more expensive. i know packaged foods have better "deals", but thats because theyre marked up so much. when you buy fresh food, youre just paying for the food, but when you buy packaged, processed food, youre paying for the ingredients, the processing, the packaging, etc., typically paying more money for less, lower quality food. 

myth: you have to have a "stockpile". 

truth: its better to just buy what you need. even though "stockpiling" food when its cheapest to last until its cheap again sounds like it would save money, it really doesnt: first, you have to spend the money up front to buy the huge quantities, then you have to store all of it, then you have to make sure you actually eat it before it goes bad. its also super time consuming AND gets you stuck eating the same things over and over again. 

saving money on groceries has a reputation for being a complicated code that needs to be cracked, when really, with some simple common sense, anyone can do it. 

have you ever run into these "grocery myths"? what are your thoughts on them?

why poverty luxe?

last week i outlined what the poverty luxe lifestyle is, now today i want to talk about why we live poverty luxe. i mean, why dont we just dave ramsay ourselves to financial freedom? why dont we just work a million side-hustles to make more money? why dont we devote ourselves to being as frugal as humanly possible to save every penny we can? why dont we just accept that were poor and live "like poor people are supposed to"?

well, the short answer to that is because none of that is what we want. in fact, some of that is stuff weve tried, and frankly, it doesnt make us happy. why? (again, short answer here), is because all of those lifestyles require being obsessed with money: how much you have, how much you want to have, and how youre going to get it. 

the long answer is that while weve always struggled financially, ive always had expensive taste, and james has always had expensive hobbies. to make things even more difficult, neither of us were taught good financial management skills growing up. as you can imagine, our first couple of years were bad and the life we had made for our family looked nothing like what either of us wanted. we (and by we i mostly mean i) were pretty dang miserable: no matter what we did, we were always out of money with nothing much to show for it. 

after that i spent a lot of time reading about personal finance: different rules, different plans, different methods, and nothing really worked for us. a lot of the information out there operates under the assumption that you make plenty of money but are irresponsible with how you spend it (which is exactly the opposite of our problem), that youre trying to pay off a ton of debt (we didnt have any debt until this last year and only have a modest balance on one credit card because james had a bad year while i was in school), or that any kind of extravagance is completely off limits until you have a certain amount of money in the bank (im not even going to go in to why i despise this mindset). and dont even get me started on the kinds of stuff i found while looking for frugal living tips...

we wanted to make a better life for ourselves, both in the short term and the long term, but we also wanted to make sure that we werent saving "enjoying life" for some unknown (and not guaranteed) future time when wed have enough money to "deserve" nice things. 

so we learned. we adapted. we applied what we could from the research i had done but disregarded the rest. we figured out what was important to us and what wasnt. we figured out exactly where our money went and why we were running out every month. we cut back where we could to make room for the "luxuries" that made us happy (healthy food, disneyland, nice clothes, dinners out, etc.). weve spent the past five years figuring out the balance between the money we have and the life we want, and I'm glad we did, because even though we dont have a lot, were at least taking steps to making a life that makes us happy instead of making ourselves miserable doing what other people say we should do. 

and now, im going to start sharing some of the tips and tricks so that you can learn to love living the broke life too. its possible, i promise. 

are you out there living the broke life too? what do you want to learn?