I wanted to take a few minutes to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

This past year has been full of challenges and rewards! The middle of January last year I didn’t even have a blog. My sister Anna talked me into starting one and “the rest is history”! By February, I was nominated into a group of amazing woman for a chance at Mommy Blogger of the year from Scholastic Book Club. After a month of voting I was chosen as one of the 5 Mommy Bloggers! I was featured in the June edition of Parent and Child magazine. This fall again I had the amazing opportunity of being one of only 30 Deal Pro’s chosen by Savings.com to travel to San Francisco, all expenses paid, for an awesome weekend of rubbing shoulders with Woman who I consider “famous” in the blog world and learning from them! It was wonderful! I was featured in many Houston newspapers through out the year and was on The CBS Early morning show in San Francisco and the National Show in New York. My own local Houston channel 11 station did a fun show this fall on 11 gifts for $11 and under thanks to an email to the reporter from my friend Suzanne. One year ago I could have never imagined that any of this would have happened.

I have made many mistakes this year and am still learning. This fall I switched to a different platform, and tried using a designer for my site. It didn’t work out at all for me and my site was down for a couple of days. I found a new amazing designer and moved back to a platform I was comfortable with. But, in the process I lost many readers. As your readership grows you have to make changes, I just jumped to quickly without a firm plan and wasted a lot of money. I can’t tell you how much ugly and mean email I got. I was very surprised. I assumed that I was “providing a service” for people that didn’t cost them anything and never expected the ugly mail. But you learn to be thick skinned and move on.

The purpose of my blog is to provide a place for woman ( and some men too!) to learn how, and have the resources to financially take care of their families. Either to help make it possible to make ends meat, to build up your food storage, to free up some spending money or learn how to spend less. I try and keep it real. I don’t always get my coupons cut out. Sometimes I yell at my kids, my house isn’t always clean and I have cried at a Target checkout counter when I was sick or arguing with a (idot!) cashier…

Before I started couponing we were spending $1200 a month on food and toiletries. It took me a good 6mo. to learn how to coupon, get a good stash of coupons and feel comfortable with what I was doing. But I could not have done it without the help from a good friend Susan W. She held my hand and showed me what to do. With her help it finally “clicked” for me. That is what I want to do here. Somehow through the internet I want to hold your hand and help you learn how you can save yourself thousands of dollars a year! We now spend about $400 a month on food and toiletries. What can I do with that extra $800 a month? Well, here in Texas that is almost my house payment. I feel like we are living for free and it only takes me a few extra hours a week.

Because my family is my life, and I am so proud of them and all the funny and crazy times that we have I write about them all the time. I have been told not to by the “big” deal bloggers and the real professionals, but I can’t help it. How do you not write about tips for traveling with 6 kids, and stuffed animal poop, imaginary pets, and my 3 year olds opinion of me naked? This is all part of my life and I have to share it somewhere because I can guarantee that I am not saying it out loud to anyone!

So, thanks for hanging in there with me, thanks for reading my little blog everyday and sending me kind emails… Thanks, The Woodlands readers for recognizing us in the grocery store and making my kids think I famous, it is easier to get them to clean their rooms that way! I hope this year brings you so much happiness and some financial freedom, please feel free to email ( mylitter@mac.com) anytime with any questions or concerns, I want to help everyone that I can, if I don’t have an answer I find it for you!

Happy New Year!