About "Fun Frugal Mom"
and the Family that Inspires It

Home >> About Fun Frugal Mom

After an amicable marital split from their Dad several years ago, we all experienced not only emotional hardships, but real financial hardships as well.

I found myself having to say “No” whenever the kids asked for something.

“No” to movies. “No” to eating out.

“No” to buying those treats that every kid asks for whenever you take them into a store.

Always “No”.

Everything had to be a necessity because there just wasn’t money for the “extras”. The situation took it's toll on us and over time we became stressed out and cranky. (OK-- "Stressed out and cranky" was mostly me.)

We needed a vacation. We needed to just have some fun, as a family.

Plus, I was getting tired of always having to say "No".

Something had to change.

So...I scraped together as much money as I could, and by being as frugal as possible, we were able to have a weekend getaway at the beach that year. It was only two nights at a very modest hotel. I had to bring juice packs, lots of supermarket snacks, and sandwich fixings. Our sand toys came from the Dollar store and there were no store bought souvenirs.

Even with all the scrimping, we had a fantastic time! The priceless part? We were able to relax, and reconnect as a family.

So I decided we needed to spend time like that more often. I wanted us to always have something good to look forward to, but since my plan to win a gazillion dollars in the lottery wasn't panning out, I had to come up with a "Plan B".

I learned the hard way that being able to afford activities where the kids and I could unwind and laugh together was just as important to our well being as being able to afford milk, bread and gas.

In order for me to afford activities and outings for my family on a regular basis I had to learn short cuts, tricks, and money-saving "secrets" to stretching our not-so-many dollars.

My quest for frugal fun came from necessity, and I've learned that being a fun frugal mom is not only fun.... it's SMART....and it's teaching my kids how to be fun frugal people too!

I’ve since become pretty resourceful in my search for entertainment (and other frugal life stuff) for my family, so I decided to create this site to share what I know and to encourage other moms to do the same.