Down to the punch line, and I am excited. We have been figuring things out, and cutting back on a lot of things. I hope that what I have learned from this can pass to the kids. Since this all started my daughter Brianna has saved up $63. She is paying for her own things, and learning that if she spends all her money, there will be none left. Dillon, my son, has a natural obsession with finding money and wanting to put it into his piggy bank. He also loves to count his money over and over again. I will drive all my knowledge into their brains. I will strive to make sure they don't make the mistakes we as parents have made. I hope that we can also teach them that money does not buy happiness; being a family and doing stuff does. I noticed on Sunday when we went to church at Family Worship Center in Hayden, that they may be doing some financial guidance stuff. I would love to get involved in that. I want to take my experience and pass it on to others. I would love to lend a hand, and share so that I may help a family in trouble, like this contest helped us.

I spent Thanksgiving in Arizona with family (love those frequent flyer awards!).  I found myself comparing our life to the scenery on a drive from Tucson to Phoenix; somewhat barren and simple.  There is a beauty to the scenery in the Southwest that I have come to enjoy, just as I have come to enjoy how simple our life has become over the past six months.  Our attitude toward money has changed and this has influenced how we approach most everything in our lives.  Communication has improved (as much as can be expected with teenagers). Stress levels have decreased; I no longer sweat the small stuff.  We have a workable plan for the future and are more prepared for emergencies than I ever thought possible.

I cannot begin to express my appreciation to all of the people who have touched our lives from the onset of the Financial Health Challenge.  Gayle at UHSCU has become a friend and confidant as well as an immeasurable resource.  Her words of encouragement, direction and support have been fantastic.  Jane and her many photographers at KREM-2 have been funny and kind.  Being interviewed didn’t seem quite so terrifying with Jane’s smiling face nearby.  The visit by Avista was a wonderful experience and very educational.  Thanks so much for the light bulbs, low flow shower head and all the wonderful pointers on saving energy.  My friends and family have been so supportive over the past 6 months.  Thanks for listening to my crazy ideas and dealing with my excitement over the little things.  My charming boyfriend Jeff never once complained and was, as always, amazingly supportive.  The biggest thank you goes to my boys, CJ and Jake.  We never would have entered this contest without you urging me to complete the essay.  It was your support and willingness to participate in every part of this contest that made it worthwhile.  Never once did either of you balk, no matter what loony suggestion I had to save a few dollars.  As Jeff is constantly reminding me, regardless of the contest outcome, we are winners.

As this years’ contest draws to an end, I want to congratulate both families for the tremendous strides they have made toward Financial Health.  I know that neither family will convert back to their previous spending bad habits because they both have felt the emotions that coincide with success while they still have the memories of the despair that accompanies debt problems.

I would like to congratulate both families for a job well done.  They both took on the challenge and stuck with it and both families had some great ideas and plans for improving their finances. And they both used their plans to accomplish positive results.  I do hope that the followers of the contest took at least one good idea and put it to use in their own lives.  It takes that first step to start working on improving finances.

I would also like to thank Heather, my opposing coach, for another year of challenging me and “my family” to look for new and innovative plans to improve saving and cut spending.  See you at the finish line… :)

Today we took the kids sledding, and then we came home and built snowmen and igloos.  Except for the gas, it was free.  We did however eat out, but bought off of the dollar menu and shared drinks.  When we go out, we have found that not ordering drinks, and just drinking water save between $5 and $10 depending on the place.  That is one tip we learned early on.  At fast food, we order one meal, go big, and split it.  That’s another way to save.  I did my black Friday shopping, and spent half on almost everything I bought.  It was great, the store let us begin early, and there was no line or crowding.  Super excited, cant wait to find out how we did.

I love the winter, almost as much as I love the summer.  Just like summer, we are finding family fun things to do for cheap or free.  There are several local places. Two that I know of are "cherry hill" in Coeur d’Alene and a certain street in Worley  where families can sled for free.  I am a chicken, but I love to watch my kids and husband.  Sledding is fairly cheap, and free if you already have equipment.  I believe the most expensive basic sledding gear is $10 and can drop all the way down to $1.  After sledding, going home and making hot cocoa is about .10 cents a pack.  Snowball fights are free, and so is building snowmen.  My son and I built a mini snowman yesterday.  This year I would like to ice fish, which is cheap to do.  Licenses are about 25 for the year I think, and tackle is cheap depending on where you go.  The huts are not so cheap, but I may find one to borrow or buy used.  Putting up decorations is a fun family tradition, and driving around looking at lights is a day get-together,  This costs gas so mapping out a plan is good.  There are many parades that we go to, and we can walk around the Coeur d Alene resort and check out all the Christmas stuff from the shore.  Right now we have not got to do much of this because Hunting season is here, and any one that hunts knows hunting season comes first...LOL...  I call it " the time when husbands disappear." Still the meat from it saves us money and makes up for the cost of a tag.  This is also our prime time to receive taxidermy work.  We just have so much to do in the winter, and so much fun.  Last year I was a little sad about the snow situation.  It’s a fun change that I didn't get to welcome, and even my kids were bummed.  This year I want to get the family involved in more free things to enjoy.  I would like us to volunteer at local shelters or anywhere, and I want to Christmas carol.  I think caroling would be so much fun for us to do.  Another great free thing to do is getting involved in our local church " Family Worship Center," in Hayden.  Most local churches have a list of activities to get involved in during this time of the year.  Plays, projects, and my desired caroling can be found in many church agendas.  Since it is God who has helped and looked after us,  I would like to dedicate more of my time to his cause after this contest.  I understand the church ideas may not be for all, but the other ones are cheap or free as well.  I am so excited about the opportunities the snow brings, for the economy and for the family.

A quick not for thanksgiving.  Hopefully this gets posted before the big Turkey day.  I wish all a good day, and for all that have been following us, I hope your holiday is filled with frugaleness and love.  I also want to encourage people to donate to Toms Turkey Drive, or any food donation.  At a time when money is tight, every little bit helps for those that cant afford food.  For years we have been donating, and that's one expense worth paying.  I hope people get there 5 dollar turkeys from Albertsons or Safeway before Wed... and Now is the time to stock up  on baking items.  Huge sales are going on for flour, sugar, canned goods and other baking items.  Gearing up for Black Friday.. I don't want to spend but i know the presents I have to buy will be cheapest new on black Friday.  Have a Safe shopping trip. 

The boys and I have been cutting costs for 6 months now and have learned so much.  I thought it might be fun to share some of what we have learned as the Financial Health Challenge draws to a close.  Our financial guru, Gayle, encouraged us early in the contest to look at every monthly bill.  I took this as an opportunity to see where additional cuts could be made in those areas.  We signed up for the Avista Comfort Billing program, which will really make a difference this winter.  Calls were made to our garbage company, cell phone provider and internet service as well.  While we weren’t able to cut costs with every company, we did see a significant improvement in our monthly bills.  Gayle’s suggestion that we track daily spending was a real eye opening experience.  Eating out for lunch quickly became a thing of the past, as did driving and parking downtown for work.  The boys and I now pack our lunches each morning and I love riding the bus to work.  Our next goal was to tackle back to school costs.  I decided to make a list of the items the boys needed and then started noting prices and watching for sales.  We stayed within budget for our back to school needs, a nice change from previous years.  To be honest, I’d never made a budget for that sort of thing – we just purchased what we felt we needed. 

Our next battle took much longer than I thought it would; our grocery budget.  Initially, I thought we could conquer this monster within a month.  In reality, it took almost 3 months.  I started with a weekly menu, focusing on sales and driving from store to store with coupons in hand.  When the boys started school and life became busy with extra-curricular activities, the weekly menu went out the window.  It simply wasn’t feasible to try to stick to a menu when life was so chaotic.  We switched to a pantry list, which has been working very well for us.  Since we seem to make the same basic 15 meals, with simple variations, having a pantry list has made grocery shopping fairly easy.  We watch for sales, stocking up on items when prices drop.  I like spending one hour on the weekends doing the grocery shopping instead of several hours, sometimes a few times a week.  We’ve also managed to cut out just about all premade items from our pantry.  Saving money by not purchasing premade sauces and boxed items has been a great money saver as well.  Cleaning supplies were our next target for the contest – I found recipes in books and on the internet for laundry soap and dishwasher soap.  Both recipes are simple, extremely inexpensive and work amazingly well.  We’ve been using vinegar for cleaning windows and mirrors as well as using it for a fabric softener.  It leaves no odor, works great and the cost is very low.

The cost saving ideas listed above are areas I don’t see us changing post contest.  Making meals from scratch, creating our own cleaners and simply watching where our money goes are frugal concepts that simply make sense for us. 

When I was a little girl till even now, I grew up watching "Roseanne."  I find my self more and more like that show everyday.  Sometimes I feel like a certain episode, even more so now that im in this contest.  There was one show where Roseanne was teaching the High School Girls how to bargain shop at the market.  During this she utterly embarrassed One of her girls, and slipped out a secret that the cereal they all had been eating, out of the name brand box, was indeed not name brand.  Roseanne was re-using the box and filling it with the off brand cereal.  I believe the daughter was Darleen, and she was mad and ashamed.  When I first watched that episode i was much younger and I remember thinking," how embarrassing I would never let my parents pull that off."  LOL, now I am that parent.  Luckily, my children are still young enough that name brand has not affected them, and my bargain shopping still goes unnoticed but the day will come.  My parents use to tell me, " one day GILLIAN, you will have to buy your own groceries, and then you will understand!"  All I have to say to that  phrase that still haunts my brain is,,, AMEN!!!  I just wish I would have realized it before we got into debt, or maybe i knew better all along, i just wanted to fit in.  I didn't want to be less, or made fun off.  Even as an Adult, I wanted to have better things, and expensive things. I know that  Humiliation is a big part of being frugal.  I feel embarrassed when I am holding up a line at the market with all my coupons and add matches.  One day, I know my kids will NOT want to shop with me, and may even dislike me for my frugality, or try and hide it from their friends.  I know their friends will make fun of me because my friends made fun of my dad, the voice in my head.  My dad was so humiliating, that I would hang my head.  My dad used to walk up and down the middle divider on highway 101, wearing an orange vest from his county road maintenance job, picking up aluminum cans and Marlboro miles that people throw out of their cars.  He would collect anything he could to help us get by.  He would walk miles and miles everyday collecting others trash, pull over on the road for a quarter, and save a buck wherever her could.  People I knew, friends driving that highway would say all the time..." ha ha gill, I saw your dad today picking up trash, walking." or my girlfriends would tell me things like, " Your dad is so cheap'"  He did everything he could to save or gather money.  He turned cans in for money, ordered Marlboro items for free, and he never let on that he cared what others thought.  I wish I would have learned from his behavior rather than shying away from it because I couldn't stand others jokes.  That is frugal braveness that I want to have one day.  It is not emotional easy to be this way.  But life is so much better when I live through humility.  Righting every week about my problems is just as Humbling and humiliating.  Still I do it, because I have figured out that through my embarrassment, I can better my life and others.  The other day some one asked me about my competition, and I felt shy and kind of  humiliated.  I didn't think that particular person would watch krem at 6, but then i shook off my emotions and found out that they are truly interested in what I had to say.  It has taken allot to put aside my inhibitions and do this.  I Knew everyone who who knew me would judge how much weight I gained when they saw me on tv.  I knew my life would be an open book and some would figure out what a financial screw up I was, the one that made her family homeless for awhile, and I knew when I started doing coupons that people would whisper about me in line.  Still, I would not trade any of this for the world.  I am glad that I have to face my insecurities, because when you have to face things for what they are, you cant run from them.  I hope to one day be like my Dad.  The master of frugalness, a money pinching, trash collecting, pull over on the side of the road for a quarter, no credit card, savings account, buy cheap kind of guy, who never let the world interrupt what was right,,, his unappreciated efforts and striving to provide for his family.    

The weekend “sister visit” went so well, we’ve decided to make it an annual occurrence.   We have a tentative plan for 2011 to have a “spa weekend” with just the three of us.  My assignment is to locate a local spa, determine price options and then we will discuss how to deal with the financial portion of our next outing.  I’m envisioning a savings account with monthly contributions from each of us.  Saving money is a simple thing if you set the money aside in small amounts thru out the year.  Those small amounts really add up!  Putting $20 a paycheck (assuming a bi-weekly paycheck scenario) adds up to $520 a year.  That, for me, is mindboggling! 

The girls and I decided to stay in on Saturday night.  We stopped by a favorite fast food restaurant and picked up burgers, fries and onion rings.  We enjoyed our meal at home while watching a movie via Netflix and even made homemade s’mores!  Our trip downtown for burgers brought back memories of cruising Riverside as teenagers.  I’m pretty sure my old Studebaker didn’t get the best gas mileage, but we sure had fun!! 

While my sisters and I were out this weekend, we stopped for a short time at a store I used to frequent quite often.  As I wandered the store, I started to reminisce about my past spending habits.  There were at least four home décor items that I would have purchased in my pre-contest days.  The total would have been close to $100, with tax.  While there are some things I would like to add to my home, purely for aesthetics, nothing I looked at will keep us warm or is in any way truly necessary.  Having a nice home isn’t a bad thing; I am simply planning to do so with my budget in mind.  I’ve made a list of the things I would like to add and will watch for them at local discount stores and garage sales. 

Our weekend left us with several food items we don’t normally have on hand.  I am planning to incorporate some of these items into our meals this week.  We have a large bag of tortilla chips that I used to make nachos just the other night, for example.  The bag of limes in the fridge will be used to make a nice marinade for chicken for Sunday dinner. 

Here we are nearing the end of the competition I just can not believe how much our lives have changed and of course in a very positive way.  The things that we did before this contest started now seem so foolish and expensive.  All the things that we used to do on a very regular basis like eating out became normal and now are a really nice treat when we do it.  Not going out for dinner has not only saved us money but also created more family conversation time at home around the dinner table (which is not always possible in certain restaurant environments) and we tend to enjoy it more now that it is not the norm.  If only I knew just how much money we wasted by going out to eat all the time, no I really don’t want to know it would probably make me sick. 

Before this contest if you were to tell me I didn’t need some certain things I would argue that fact.  I thought we had to have cable TV shoot we haven’t had it in about 5 months and I tell you what I don’t even really miss it.  Another one is movies, we used to go out to the movies and rent movies quite often.  We still go to the theatre on occasions and rent movies but we are a lot smarter and frugal about it.  We now rent movies from Red Box which is only $1 a day and when we go to the theatre Gill always has coupons and free popcorn or beverage tickets so it really isn’t such a huge ding in the pocket book (man she is awesome).  I can tell you one thing; all of the things that we have cut or sacrificed have only brought my family closer and stronger.  We are better now than we have ever been financially and emotionally it is such a great feeling.