Today...6.27.2011 - First steps

Welcome to our blog. Our goal here is to help those who are struggling with feeding their families healthy meals during this crazy economy. This all started because I was laid off from my job, lost our benefits and since I was already in school to improve our lives, we decided it would be worth it for me to focus on getting my education so I would not have to face another layoff. So far a positive benefit has been not only focusing on school and becoming a house mom, but being able to volunteer at my daughters schools. The hard part is that we live in Orange County, CA and the cost of living is high - trust me if we could move to another state and have a place to live and Zach would already have a job, we totally would. But for now, we have to make it here through this rough patch. So we have to be creative.

I am sure almost everyone has heard of the TV Show 'Extreme Couponing', if not has watched at least one episode.  Well, that is where I started this journey, was to watch one or two episodes so I could learn how it works and I did. Where I live, we do not have those kinds of grocery stores or those kinds of deals on coupons but a lot of stores do help. The show itself has stir a huge community out there, though, where people are huge on saving money to help take care of their families. So this is my part of that journey.

Here were the steps I took to get started (and I am still working on finishing up all of this to post here):

1.   Take an inventory of all the food I have in the house - this includes spices and items in the fridge and making sure I break down brands and types - (Better Crocker, Chocolate Cake mix; Duncan Hines, Dark Chocolate Cake Mix; etc.)

2.   Create a list of items that we tend to eat or like to eat and then circle the items that are must haves in our house - the Staples....ketchup, butter, eggs, chicken, etc.
 
3.   I am working on a spreadsheet that put those lists together along with a list of what coupons I currently have and when they expire.

4.   I contacted all the companies that I shop at to find out what their rules are for coupons, printed coupons and rain checks.

5.   A price list of the current sales for the week. Here I started looking on Yahoo! to see if someone else already started this and yes they did, so I downloaded it and found it was good but needed more for what I wanted to use it for. So I am in the process of redesigning it for our needs and added all my other lists so they are in one spot. Once I have this fixed, I will be sharing this with everyone - FREE.

After all of this, I forgot a key element - what is my monthly budget? So in our household, currently we only have a budget of $150 for four people. Our roommate is going to be pitching in and in exchange I will be preparing foods for him for an extra $100 a month. So that is $250 for 5 people. How in the world am I going to be able to do that when we are used to a budget of $600? My heart sank and I thought everything I had been working towards was about to fail. NOOOOOOOOO, I can not give up so easily. I will figure this out and make this work so we can have a better life. So I have to cook for 5 people on $8 a day! 

You ready to join me on this journey...please feel free to share your ideas, recipes, and eventual a coupon swap. I know if I can do this, we will become healthy because we will be eating less (since all the adults are overweight - this is a great thing); a little healthier - hopefully; but most of all, I will be able to teach my kids how to survive this crazy world and give them the faith that they can beat any obstacle!