Monday, January 4, 2016

Stuff We Don't Buy // Intro


In March of 2015, my husband and I were married (for the first time), took a four day honeymoon and then packed up my little Toyota Corolla and began a 2 day road trip from our small town in California to the big city of Austin, Texas. 

During this time, my husband had been working at his job for only 3 months. He was an independent contractor which meant that his pay was based on the amount of work he produced and at the time, he wasn't receiving any benefits.

I had resigned from my position as the Executive Assistant of a small nonprofit to move to Texas. I had applied for over 30 jobs by the time we arrived (seriously - I made a spreadsheet to keep track) and had 2 interviews, one for a preschool teacher position and one for an after school child care position. The preschool initially decided not to hire me but shortly contacted me after that to see if I was still available. 

By that time I had already interviewed for and accepted the after school care job. I was so grateful to finally have found work - the only bummer was that it took about a month before I could start my new job due to processing my paperwork and background check. 

It was during this time of not yet being able to work that I had to get really creative about how to maximize our budget.
As newlyweds with one income, bills to pay and student loan debt, it was a bit challenging.

I began to think of things we were paying for that we didn't necessarily need and came up with 10 different things we don't buy. 
I wanted to share our list in hopes that it may help others who are on tight budgets as well or may be just looking for easy ways to save.

 Our list is what works best for our family in this season so I would encourage you to consider what would work best for yours in your current stage of life. 

Please join me tomorrow as I kick off a new series called Stuff We Don't Buy.