Confessions of a Spendarista

Hey there everyone.  Megs here.  As we have been discussing frugal living and changing the way to think about spending across all areas of life, I felt it would be good to be totally honest about why frugal living is just about all I can think about these days.  We (my little family) are in debt, and we are finally at a place where we can start to sort out what we need to do to get out of debt.  We've made pretty much every bad financial decision you can make...more than once ;)  In the past, I would shop for groceries, clothing, you name it and never even give a thought to the budget.  Over the course of our marriage, we've had financial blessings and disasters...but the good news is, there is never a bad time to start living below your means :)  We just organized our finances and came up with a "debt snowball" plan that is guiding us in how to get out of debt, and in about 5 years we will be done! 5 years seems like forever right now, but I know it is possible and that we will get there.  One of the things that got me excited about budgeting and living thrifty was sharing the journey with others.  My cousin Nichole has always inspired me to try new things, and she is super crafty as well as having some awesome frugal living tips (and mad fashion skills too!) so she was the perfect person to blog with :)

So I've gone from a shopping-grasshopper in summer type existence to a couponing, thrift-store shopping, penny pinching "Thriftarista."  It's pretty fun, actually!

I'm also trying to tackle healthy eating and living as a whole, which can be slightly overwhelming at times.  I recently watched two great documentaries, Hungry for Change and Fat, Sick, Nearly Dead.  Both have inspired me to start juicing, and I LOVE it...and one of the things I've gleaned from Hungry for Change is that in the midst of wanting to change and be "better," we also need to start with accepting who we are right now.  So, that's where I am.  Every day when I log on to the computer, I have this super cheesy picture to greet me and repeat this to myself out loud:

It's a good place to start :)