Learning to live Frugally

A little bit of back story: I am a 30 something female & have been married for nearly 20 years with two teenage children. I have never had an abundance of money but have not thought about where or how to lower our expenses. Several years ago, my husband lost his job and it took several months before finding another one. Any money we had quickly flew out the front door (teenagers tend to have their hand out for something or other). My husband eventually found another job but had to take a major cut in pay. The only upside to the lower paycheck is that we finally had health insurance after going several years without it. Our combined paychecks barely cover the cost of our home, electricity, insurance and general cost of living. With grocery prices sky rocketing for even the basic necessities, I started using coupons. I found a 3 ring binder that the kids were no longer using and purchased plastic covers used for baseball cards and started sorting my coupons (I never did become one of those Coupon Queens they show on TLC) but I did save quite a bit of money. Still I was spending over $100/week on groceries for our family of 4 well 9 if you count the 4 dogs and Bella the ferret. So I started doing some research and found simple ways to make your own products and save lots of money. I wanted to share these simple things with you to not only help those that need to watch their pennies but also help families go "green" in small ways. My next posts will be about things I have learned and still learning.