New to the site, definitely not new to being frugal

**teckygrl** · 06-26-2007, 02:06 PM

My name is Gina and here's the longest "short" questionnaire ever:

How did you hear about frugal village?I found it while doing a search for something about Sam's club

What interests you here? I have never had much money to get by on and sometimes I've done better than others. I realized that lately my spending was out of control and we SHOULD be able to afford certain things, but we can't due to lack of planning

Do you know any other members here? if I do, I'm not aware of it

How many kids? Ages? I have 2 boys: ages 6 and 8. My fiance has two boys that we get every other weekend that are 10 and 12.

Tell us about yourself. I'm 29 years old and I live in a semi-rural community in southern Virginia. When people speak of hickville, redneckville, etc.. thats sorta where I am. It has its good points: peace and quiet, fresh air, low cost of living, high speed of cable internet cause no one around here has it. (haha) It also has its down side: I have to drive 20 highway miles to get to the nearest Wal-mart, there literally is no bookstore within 45 minutes of me, a lot of specialty items I simply can't get, and the weirdest to me is that people tend to drive one speed around here. 40mph. That means they drive 40 if its a 25 zone and 40 if its a 70. Scary...

I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta and have lived in/near other major cities like Boston and Dallas, so moving here was a bit of culture-shock for me.

I realized lately that our finances are not the worst they could be, but are not the best they could be either. I want to make that situation better so I can stop stressing and worrying so much about it. I grew up dirt poor, at times. There were times we lived in motels when we were between rental homes. We lived off disability, foodstamps, etc for most of my life. My life was moving from house to house and worrying about money early on. I never owned anything newly bought from a store until I graduated high school. I want better for my kids. I want to own a home of my own and I want to set a better example for them in how to be a responsible adult.

Do you own any pets? nope

SAHM or Working mom? working - I work "part-time" if you can call it that. I work for a school district and I have a lot of duties, but my main one is supporting and helping with our computerized Student Information System. Everything and anything a school system wants/needs to keep track of: grades, attendance, discipline, health info, emergency contacts, etc... is in this program. I also am solely responsible for the support of our electronic gradebook system and lately have become a report writer and data collection person for a lot of the administrators and superintendents. The problem is.. I work 35 hours a week. It's JUST enough that they can get by calling me part-time and not giving me benefits. I'm paid hourly with no vacation, no time off, no holiday pay. So in many ways it kinda sucks. (to be blunt about it)

Married or single? not-yet married. My fiance and I have been together for four years and got engaged last year. Unfortunately, I can't really foresee how to make the actual wedding itself work - financially and logistically. But thats another story altogether.

Interests and hobbies? I love computers (I built my own), music - used to play the piano, violin, and viola, singing, reading literature, writing, games, just about anything puzzle-related, sports (watching - im a total klutz myself), pretending to be a good cook. My interests in school were psychology, math, philosophy and reading. I've been interested in couponing since I was in high school and used to clip coupons for my mom. I'm starting that up again along with cross-stitching.