Introduce Yourself

[nobs]

Hello to all. I'am a stay at home mom, and student. Married, 3 kids. I love to garden, both flower and vegetable. Will can this year for the first time. I froze everything in the past. We are cheap, and we love it. People think we are weird! I'am sucking up the info on this forum like a sponge. Love it!

[BAGAGT1]

Hi all, I am married 30 YO male with a wonderful wife and a dog, I joined the forum as a way to help find my way out of debt. Although I am not drowning in debt, I want to once again taste the sweet nectar that is being debt free. I was once debt free, but then my wife went back to school and we bought a house (and the furniture and appliances to go with it). My goal is to be completely debt free within one year....maybe less. I will be reading regurlarly to find new tips on how save and make money.

[Fern]

My name's Fern. I've always earned a living as a writer and have always been frugal, i guess a trait inherited from my hard-working grandparents. Got to be more of a tightwad out of necessity during a few periods of unemployment, and I guess that characteristic just stuck, even after i found work again.

This is a great website, though I find it lacks some explanation/direction regarding how some parts of the site work, eg, the point system.

[HeatherW]

Hi everyone! I wanted to take a quick moment to introduce myself. My name is Heather and I'm from Georgia. I am married with 2 fur-kids (my dogs). Currently I am a full-time Culinary Arts student. I am so glad I found this site through an article on the Dollar Stretcher! :-)

HeatherW

[karie]

Hi!

I'm new here. My name is Karie and I am a work at home mom from upstate NY. I have 1 son who is 13. Hubby and I are Ameriplan USA brokers and we love it. This looks like a great board.

~Karie

[wholelottacoffee]

Hello all! I just found this board while looking for coupons on the Internet and thought there would be a lot of good advice to be learned here. A bit about myself - my name is Elena. I live in San Francisco with my lovely daughter, husband and cats. I manage a small restaraunt, which I often mistake for my life, but I really enjoy reading, jogging, and spending time at home with my family.

Welcome all!

[ephalba]

Greetings to all. I am a long time "lurker", who delights in the creative approaches found here concerning the elusive lifestyle of thoughtful spending. I am a single woman of 47, with one bright and shining son, 21 years of age. I hail from "Big D" in the State of Texas. I have lived here my entire life with the exception of a short sojourn in New Orleans, LA-my birthplace and the place I still connect with. I was blessed with Depression-era parents who taught that a rich life and material possessions were not necessarily the same.
I work in the County Hospital-approximately 7,000 employees, 900+ bed facility, with some of the best and most compassionate doctors and nurses to be found anywhere in the U.S. Our patients consistently rate the quality of our care extremely high, and our facility has been named one of the top hospitals in the nation in U.S. News and World Report. All of this on a very lean budget. Our patient load has risen significantly over the last few years from truly indigent individuals to suburban families who can no longer afford healthcare insurance.
That being said, I never really gave much thought to planning ahead for my future in terms of saving, until I found myself divorced at 36 and struggling to support myself for the first time in eleven years. It actually felt like I had awakened from a deep sleep into a jarring reality. Suddenly, I realized that my retirement and financial future was up to me alone. I've always found that information fights fear, so the first thing I did was read every financial book I could get my hands on: Suze Orman, Ric Edelman, Clark Howard, Dave Ramsey, etc., until I was able to cobble together a plan that worked for me.
What makes this particular site one of my favorites is the inspiration and motivation I get from all the people willing to share their struggles with earning, spending, and hanging on to money. The journals in particular show how difficult making a change can be, as well as how wonderful it feels when you do. I am really looking forward to getting to know all of you better.

[jeffrey]

Welcome one and all. It's always good to see new faces and learn a bit about those that come here (whether you post or lurk). I think you'll find the people here will give you a lot of different opinions to consider so that you can make the right choices for you. great to have you along for the ride!

[DayByDay]

Greetings,

I'm a 42yo mother of two. Dh is a contractor whose income fluctuates greatly from month to month which makes it very difficult to make a budget work, but I keep trying. I keep busy doing the bookkeeping for dh and with homeschooling.

I've been lurking here for a little while and enjoying reading the posts. Thought I'd finally say hello.

[sleepy2622]

Hi....I'm new to the forums...as of today!
I am a WAHM & live in Hampton, VA. We are a military family, so that changes every so often. I have a 2 year old daughter and a son on the way (in September). I've recently started in on Network Marketing, from home with a company called GDI. I'm really excited about the company. I've already started earning money from them (without much effort) & on top of the residual money I earn, they offer bonuses every week. So it's pretty awesome. You guys can all check out my business at the link in my signature. I love what I do!
Anyway...I look forward to metting a lot of you & seeing other postings!

[catlover15]

I just found this site today and already it has helped a lot.

[cheapbastard]

Hello,
I am a science teacher in New Zealand. I moved to NZ from Canada, eight years ago. My wife and I have 2 daughters, 5 & 7 years old. We are very frugal. Since moving to New Zealand we have been able to survive on my teacher's salary while my wife stayed home with the children. In that time we have been able to travel to Canada as a family 3 times and I have been able to go back once on my own. We have also been able to purchase two rental houses as an investment. The house we live in is a rental. I think we have done really well on one income.

I recently started my own blog because I saw so many people struggling with their finances that I thought, maybe, I could help people with financial advice. I now see that maybe a forum situation might be the best place to be to offer adivice and recieve advice.

[Bruce Wayne]

Hi all. My name's Bruce and I'm from the UK. I'm very interested in finance so look forward to being a part of this community.

[altyfc]

Sorry, only just found this thread... I go by the name of Aaron the Aardvark because of a number of aardvark-related sites that we run.

I live in the UK, am 34 (yesterday!) and work mostly in the online travel industry.

Nice to meet you all!

Aaron

[taparah]

Hi - - I have been reading alot on this site ! I am a mom for 3 very active kids. A daughter who is 9 and twins boy/girl who are 6. I just graduated from Nursing school, and I am looking for a job. Our finances are very tight with one income for the last nine years. Looking for all the tips on saving money and getting back to the positive side of things.

[creditunionrate]

Hi there,

I'm new to the site. I'm a Marketing Director for a credit union. I am a credit union advocate and can answer any questions pertaining to credit unions.

[TBH]

Hello, all. I live in the Northeastern US. My partner and I both work part time and take turns caring for our toddler. I work for a university, he works for a historical society, so our incomes are not what I would call cushy. Also, we have family all over the place and do a lot of travelling to see them, so it's always a challenge to stay within budget. So far, we have been lucky enough and smart enough to remain debt-free (except for our mortgage) but I worry about saving enough for retirement and college.

[marglo]

Hi everyone! I had this site in my favorites but hadn't taken time to actually check it out much until today. It seems like a good site where I will learn more about saving money and getting out of debt! I look forward to reading all your posts! My dh and I are retired but we still have lots of debt which we are trying to pay off asap. Like Globetrotter, we love to travel, and we need to get rid of this debt so we can do it more! We had consolidated our debts when we retired esp to enable me to join my dh in retirement, but then we went a little crazy the first few years, traveling and charging, so now we have more debt! Thankfully, it will all be paid off in a couple years if we stick to our plan and we are determined to not take on any more!

[Gailete]

Hello, I saw (I think it was Jeffrey?) on the Frugal Living Forum and followed a link to here. As I have had time, I've been following the $5000 challenge which I find fascinating! From reading posts here, I saw a link to www.ebookdrop.com and paid a visit where I now have stack of books to send out that should get me $40+. This is really something, as I sell books on line, and these are books that would have been discards to the thrift store or a library store.

I'm disabled so many of the frugal things I used to do, I don't have the physical energy for anymore, so I keep looking for easy ways to save and stretch out money as my hubby is self-employed, so the only truly regular income we get is my SS check.

One of the frugal things we did this year, was several months ago, I pulled out all our cloth napkins and started using them instead of paper ones. We also started using hankies most of the time (huge savings on tissues since we both have allergies). I was really thinking about it as I hung the clothes on the line today.