lurking no more!

[cheapass]

Hi all!

I've been lurking on this site basically since last summer, but I decided to join. I've learned so much here that I guess I started feeling weird, like I was eavesdropping. I don't know how much I'll post, but at least I'm a part of things now

In the past couple of years there's kind of been a perfect storm of money issues making it necessary for me to be as cheap...sorry, frugal...as possible (hubby self employed with serious ups and downs as far as money making goes, hubby not knowing or caring about money - and costing us a fortune!, my maternity leave ending and no jobs on the horizon, moving from an apartment to a much more expensive house, and so on and so on). I've always halfheartedly tried to cut down our costs, and have even been writing down everything we spent for the past two years...but every month I'd add it up and go "how do we manage to spend $3,000 after bills every month?" and shrug and move on.

I didn't even know about coupons until I stumbled on this site last summer (I think initially I came here by accident looking for free samples). I knew about coupons, but I had no idea you could order them online, or that they made any real difference to your grocery bills. But each month I've been using them (and just being a smarter shopper in general) my totals have gone down, and this month we're at $650 for the month (for everything except bills) instead of $3,000. Which is still too high in my book, but I'm working on it.

In any case, everyone I know in real life thinks I'm crazy and laughs at me, so I thought I would sign up for the site finally and get some appreciation

Haha.

So hi!

[user-id]

Welcome to SmartCanucks!

........................

[tommygunn]

Welcome to the board!

[feetfrown]