Our journey thus far-April 19th

It appears that we are now about 3 months into this financial journey. It's been fun, rewarding, and stressful.

I spent a LOT of time planning shopping trips, clipping coupons, reading blogs about this week's deals, posting my OWN blogs about this weeks deals, adding up totals, and so on. Anyone thats in a similar boat can TOTALLY relate. It's NOT easy to be frugal. In fact, I find it kind of comical that its harder to be frugal and conservative with money than it is just to blow and go. This has taken discipline and determination for SURE! I have wanted to throw my hands up several times and say "FORGET IT! LET'S JUST GO BACK TO HOW WE USED TO BE!" And then I calm down and realize that I couldn't go back for anything.

Some progress we have made is:

**we have items on hand that we need (thats a first)-I was ALWAYS running to the store to pick up one or two things. So not only are we saving money but we are saving time and stress!

**We have managed to pay off a good bit of debt by watching our pennies.

**I have learned to cook more meals :) And for someone who used to the stove as strorage, this is HUGE!!!

**We have more down time. When you have your meals planned, you come home and cook them and get a few tasks done... you actually have time to SIT AND RELAX! It's been soooo nice. I never thought i'd see the day when my evenings weren't completely crammed full of stuff to do!

**We have not only decided to organize our financial messes but our ACTUAL messes as well. We have sold items, decluttered, organized our home and are continuing to do more of that!

This journey really started with me not having much of an agenda. I knew I wanted to make some things right, I knew I had some "Fresh starts" to make and I ALSO knew that these NEEDED to be done. But I never thought i'd come so far in just a short time.

So what about you? How are you feeling about your progress? Don't get discouraged... take it ONE step at a time!