My name is Sarah, I am a wife and a stay at home mom in the Southern California area.
I want to welcome you to my site! My prayer is that you will be encouraged as you read through my daily postings. With the help of some friends, I will try and give you thoughts and ideas to incorporate into your daily routine to help you grow as wife, mom, and manager of your home.
From the time I was young, I’ve loved “getting a good deal”. There is something that just satisfies my heart and gives me victory inside when I do. Naturally, once I got married I wanted to make my husband proud, and save money. I would cut coupons and look at the grocery store ads each week to find where the best deals were. Once I got my shopping trip all planned out, I would go to the store with the intention of staying on budget, but somehow I always ended up way over budget. I found myself buying things in the store that seemed like a good price (like the 10 for $10 items) just because they were on sale. Then there would be the trips that I would just run in for 2 things, but for some reason I would end up coming out with 20 things. To no avail, my trips were not looking like I was “getting a good deal”, no matter how many coupons I used. After we had our first child, we found out quickly (like most other families) that it was more expensive to have a child than we thought. Once we discovered this, we realized that we needed to find ways to cut back in our finances. One of the things that we decided to do was buy what we could in generic brands, since they are less expensive, and then also to buy in bulk. This worked out okay for a while, but the generic brands got old quick and the $200+ bill each trip at the bulk stores were starting to add up. We didn’t know what we were doing wrong and we didn’t know how to do things any different, so we just kept doing the same thing each month.
About a year down the road, we found ourselves in a new home and everything was great; that is until we found out that my husband’s company was eliminating his position, due to the decline in sales that year. While my husband was in a job transition, we used credit to pay for just about everything, just to get by. After a few months, my husband got a secure job with a steady income and we started to pay off what we had charged in the months before. Slowly, more and more each month we were starting to feel the pressure of all the bills and we became overwhelmed. Once again, we needed to find a way to cut back somewhere in our finances to relieve some of the financial stress. We wanted to remain good stewards of the resources that God had given us, so immediately we saw that we could try a lot harder to cut back on groceries, toiletries, household items etc. I didn’t know how it was going to be possible, but I trusted that God would provide a way, since we were trying to honor Him through our finances.
After a few days of prayer, I decided to google “shopping with coupons” and the results seemed endless. I started to click on site after site and to my surprise, I found some amazing couponing “secrets”. I was shocked that I had never seen this way of saving money before. After looking through numerous sites, I started to see exactly what I was doing wrong when I shopped at the grocery stores. I thought I knew how to use coupons, but I had been using them inefficiently all along. I started using the methods that I had read about and as soon as I “got the hang” of this new way of using my coupons, I saved anywhere from 30%-90% on my grocery bills. My husband was in disbelief and didn’t see how I could save $161.00 and only spend $1.57 for over 40 items. As I continued to save money, we knew that this was exactly what God had provided as a way for us to glorify Him in our finances.
After learning about these couponing “secrets”, how could I keep it to myself? I was definitely excited about sharing these “secrets” with others, but I wasn’t sure who would want to know. Before I knew it, God was putting people in my every day life and opening up the door to share with them what God had done for us. The more and more people I told, I started to feel God stir something in me and create a desire to not just tell people, but to teach people how to make this a part of their life. With much prayer and wise counsel from my husband and godly women, I had decided that this was definitely what I needed to do. I wanted to teach people how to save money, but I wanted to go beyond that. I felt like God wanted me to use this as an opportunity to encourage and help other women in all areas of their life, not just the area of saving money. God started to press on my heart Proverbs 31 and the importance of a woman and her role in the household. As I read through the chapter, I saw 4 recurring themes that God had pressed on my heart.
The first area is “How She Lives”. In Proverbs, we can see that a godly woman is disciplined, organized, and can multi-task. More importantly, her relationship with God is her first priority. The only way that we can have balance in our lives and become more like a Proverbs 31 woman is to place God first. In “How She Lives”, I will be posting on how you can have richer quiet times with God and suggest bible studies, seminars, music and books to help you create a deep walk with God. I will also post articles on how to help you with priorities, discipline, organization and scheduling.
The Second area is “How She Loves”. The godly woman makes her house a better home through encouragement and help to her husband and the care, instruction and discipline of her children. There are many different ways to encourage, help, instruct, care, and discipline, but I will be focusing on the way that the Lord instructs us to do those things. I will also be giving tips on decorating your home and being hospitable.
The Third area will be “How She Gives”. Most times in life, we get so wrapped up in the lives of our family that we often don’t have time to do other things. The Proverbs 31 woman made giving of her time and resources of high importance. I will point out areas where you can get involved with serving in ministry, going to outreaches, and donating your resources inexpensively.
Lastly, “How She Saves”. In the passage we can see that a godly woman is a wise consumer. God gives us resources as a blessing to use and not abuse, so we need to be wise with the things that He gives us. I will be focusing on how to be wise with our finances by teaching you how you can devote a little bit of time to save you lots of money. I will be posting the local grocery and drug store match ups and deals each week, so that you can see the “secret” on how to save 30%-90% on your family’s grocery, toiletry, and household items. Then, I will provide you with some recipes and tips on what you can do with the things that you got from the deals that week.
I wish I could tell you that I have mastered all of these areas, but I can’t say that and I don’t think I will ever be able to say that. I know that I am called to continue to strive on a daily basis to do better though. I will be pulling all of the information in my posts from multiple resources, to compile what I believe to be “How She Lives, How She Loves, How She Gives, and How She Saves.” I hope to encourage you and give you tools on a daily basis, so that you can take steps on becoming more like the Proverbs 31 woman.
