The call from CU inviting Adam to start dental school next year (and the ensuing possibility of living on a part-time teacher’s salary, otherwise known as “below the poverty line”) has launched a full-on review of the budget at the Gentry house. We’re actually pretty frugal already… Adam was born that way, and my passion for sales and budgets lands us firmly in the “saver-married-to-a-saver” category. But our current, fairly frugal budget just won’t cut it next year. In fact, we’ll need to live on less than half of our current budget. And so, our five month “road to cheaper” begins.
Let me pause to say two things. First of all, we know that God’s provision for us during this season will be absolutely extravagant! This budgeting has nothing to do with us not trusting in the abundance the Lord will provide… in fact, we are reliant on it. We just want to be good stewards of the resources God has given to us. Second, thank goodness we have a five month grace period before dental school starts. Hopefully that’ll give us time to ‘ease in’ to our budget cutbacks, to buy some of the stuff we won’t be able to afford later (like the supplies to finish our basement) and to figure out how to make this work.
As part of this ‘easing in’ season, we have a few goals:
1. Figure out how other people stretch their budget bucks.
2. Start getting free toiletries through the rebate programs at Walgreens and Rite Aid.
3. Whittle our food and entertainment categories of our current budget.
Let me pause to say two things. First of all, we know that God’s provision for us during this season will be absolutely extravagant! This budgeting has nothing to do with us not trusting in the abundance the Lord will provide… in fact, we are reliant on it. We just want to be good stewards of the resources God has given to us. Second, thank goodness we have a five month grace period before dental school starts. Hopefully that’ll give us time to ‘ease in’ to our budget cutbacks, to buy some of the stuff we won’t be able to afford later (like the supplies to finish our basement) and to figure out how to make this work.
As part of this ‘easing in’ season, we have a few goals:
1. Figure out how other people stretch their budget bucks.
2. Start getting free toiletries through the rebate programs at Walgreens and Rite Aid.
3. Whittle our food and entertainment categories of our current budget.
We started on goal #2 this weekend and hit up Walgreens for all their free-after-rebate deals. And actually, we ended up with some fabulous finds at the grocery store and Sears as well (see the picture of our free loot above... and we haven't even picked up all of Adam's free-after-rebate tools yet!). I also made a menu plan for this week… we’re trying out some dishes that are less than $1.50 per serving. When I find a recipe that’s easy and delicious (and cheap!!!), I’ll be sure to post it on here. In the meantime, if you have any tips for us, be sure to let us know.
