Oh boy I could spend all morning answering this question. I've always been somewhat thrifty anyway, except that in the early years of our marriage, I sort of got swept away in my husband's more free-spending ways and we did pamper ourselves a bit.

But, when it came time to get serious about our joint finances, the first thing we did was stop using credit cards. The amount of money you can dole out every month can be just...sickening...if you continue to use cards (I never really used them anyway, but my husband did, and I was determined we were going to get those paid down).

We also stopped eating out. For us that was big because before DD came along, I worked nights and he worked days. We hardly ever cooked, because I just wasn't home to either do it or enjoy it if he did. When we did cook, it often ended up being big gourmet affairs because we lived right up the block from a gourmet market (talk about a money sucker). So in addition to eating at home more, we had to learn how to cook more cheaply, by buying meats on sale, etc. (I try not to sweat what I spend at the grocery store *too* much, because I value quality first and foremost. I won't generally buy something of lesser quality just because it's cheap -- but I do stock up on what we use regularly when it's on sale and buy meat and produce on sale.) And I've been learning TONS of tricks from my mother-in-law about how to stretch those leftovers (the woman is a genius in this department, and I think she learned from HER mother-in-law!)

I found cheap or free ways to amuse my daughter and myself. In San Francisco, this was easy (oddly enough, considering how expensive it is overall). Not so in other areas, but there are always kids' museums and classes through the rec dept. in most communities.

I think I wrote on another thread that we haven't really had a proper vacation, save for one, in several years. But San Francisco has become our "go-to" city when it comes to cheap getaways (yes, cheap, as long as we can stay with my sister and since we're lucky enough to know where all the great, cheap food is!) When we still lived near there, we'd go over for an afternoon, spend some time downtown, and have dinner at one of our favorite spots before driving back. A "staycation" before there was a word for it! Now that we're several hours away, we actually did do a real vacation there this summer. It was one of the best vacations of all time, because we got to see so many friends, visit our favorite haunts, and then my husband and I did get a hotel for just ourselves while the little one stayed with her aunty -- we're so lucky my sister still lives in our favorite city!

I've tried the gardening thing, but so far have been unsuccessful. I'll keep trying, especially now that we're moving into our own house and I can play around a bit more. I have lots of little ways to save money, and then I try to allot some of what we save for things we really want, like a nice dinner out. One of the things my friends always roll their eyes at is that I wash and re-use plastic zipper bags. Yes, really. Those things are expensive, and I have a hard time just throwing away plastic in the first place! We also use cloth napkins and I never (well, very rarely) buy paper plates. I do save the plastic utensils we get from the rare take-out, which we always seem to find a use for (my daughter was using them for a long time, but I've been insisting on her using the regular flatware of late). I wash and reuse those for as long as they'll hold up.

I've also stopped using any non-chlorine bleach like Biz or Clorox 2. Instead I buy a 5-pound bag of baking soda at Costco for $4. (Or is it a 4-pound bag for $5? Either way it's a steal.) I use that in most loads where there are stained clothes (my daughter is a piggy so this is most loads). I find it works as well, if not better, and it makes everything smell nice (I use unscented detergent and fabric softener since we all have allergies). A bag lasts me at least a month.

Okay, I'm going to stop now. I have tons more, but I'm afraid everyone's going to fall asleep here!

We've cut way back on eating out and it does make a huge difference. However - I do like my quick foods for lunch, so Fresh and Easy is my out. I wrote about it in the coupon club but basically I found out what time they do their daily markdowns and I HAUNT that store at that time. Seriously, I've followed employees as they go through the aisles collecting the mark downs.

They mark down half price late in the day and 75% off in the evening but usually there's not much left by then. It's fresh food but we eat it so quickly, it doesn't matter. Though the girl told me about a man who buys all of their markdown bread in one shot then freezes it.

I'm so passionate about the markdowns, my husband and I got in a huge fight about it the last time we went together. He made me miss my appointed time because he stopped at the post office and they were swamped. So we get to the store and the markdown section is nearly EMPTY. I'm so annoyed and then I see this girl pushing a cart and she has like 30 marked down items in her basket. Sandwiches, sushi, soup, cookies, bread. I was so mad at my husband. I said, look! She grabbed all of it because we weren't here on time. He felt so bad, then he started getting mad saying, how rude of her to take all of the items!

In the end, it turned out that she worked for the store and was only just collecting the items and hadn't put them on the shelf yet because she was running late. I felt so bad for being upset about it - but hitting that shelf means a lot more food for my grocery budget, so it's a must.

The lesson here: Never stand between me and my Fresh n Easy markdowns!

We have had a horrible year around our household.  My husband got laid off last December because his company was hit hard with everything that was going on and had to close their doors.  He found a job in February, I got laid off in April, then he got laid off again in June.  I am currently working from home and keeping my son with me to save money instead of keeping him in daycare.  My husband has yet to find another job so he has decided to switch careers and go into fire school, which we are VERY excited about.  He was in the home building business but as we all know, that market has been hit hard.  Thankfully, he has been helping his dad out, he builds custom homes, so we have been getting some money coming in.  

Me staying home and working some has saved a lot on gas money.  I have been lucky enough to start my own little business from home so I have some money coming in and helping with the bills.  I live in Texas so during the day, I turn my air to 78 so the air doesn't run all the time and if it's cool outside, I just open the windows and turn the air off to help with the electricity bill.

I have gotten to where I buy some things that are not name brand, like Great Value graham crackers, Great Value's version of Fruit Loops and Cinnamon Toast Crunch (which I think it tastes better than the name brand and it's a little healthier too) and so on.  I cut coupons also.

I feel that the bad economy was kind of a good thing in our household because it brought us back to reality.  We were getting to where we were spending more money than we really needed to and it kicked us in the butt and brought us back to reality! LOL  Although, I have to say is we have been brought back so please, we have had enough!  Can something good happen now :-)

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