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I've been blogging for almost six months now about how to save money, and the results for me have been pretty outstanding. I am consistently saving 50-80% in the grocery store and sometimes even more at the drugstores. I am a complete convert to couponing and everything it entails because it has allowed us to have plenty in the midst of financial struggle.

I spend much less these days, and have tons more. In my not-too-distant past, I was frequently running to the store for items I always have on hand now (like oil, taco seasoning, olives, waffles, deodorant, toilet paper or replacing the toothbrush that fell in the toilet). The question for me was then, what to do with all the accumulated loot? With personal items like makeup, shampoo, deodorant and toothpaste, I have been able to do several things: give away to friends and family when they visit my home; donate to families at church; include in gifts over the holidays.

Food, though, is a little different, and that is what got me thinking. I noticed that many of the blogs I frequent were mentioning a temporary moratorium on shopping in order to eat from the pantry/freezer/fridge for a week or so. When I inventoried my own storage, I figured that we could probably make it for two weeks. In my pre-coupon world, I often threw out meat that had gone bad, moldy bread and bruised fruit and veggies. What a waste! When I became conscious of how poorly I'd been planning and spending, I turned over a new leaf and became a saver, not a waster. My mantra had become this: "My husband works very hard for this money and I am not going to waste it."

We are struggling to pay off debts from the past and do not have a single dollar of credit available to us (thank God) and have been living on cash alone for nearly 18 months. It's been hard, but eye-opening, in the sense that we didn't realize how far we'd strayed from our biblical foundation. This is why my Philippians 4 Project began—because everything for me finds its foundation in the Word of God, and ultimately, contentment is a spiritual quest.

Read my first entry about eating what we already have:

Project #1 - No Grocery Shopping for 2 Weeks