An Introduction to Living Cheap

So today my husband Bill and I were talking in the car about how the economy has affected us. Neither of us were unfortunate enough to lose jobs, but as a college professor (me) and an undergraduate student studying English (him) with 4 children between us, we know what it is like to have to look for ways to stretch our dollars. We have learned a lot over the years, both from personal experience and from our friends and family who are also living frugally.

My mother is one of the best sources of information that I have - each time she comes down here she is armed with new ideas for cheap and free things to do with the kids. "I sure wish we had known some of these ideas earlier, you know, where to go for the best prices and how to save money on area activities..." I said. "Why in the world aren't you doing a blog??" she replied. And an idea was born.

Before we begin, you might like a little background on us. As I mentioned, I am a college professor at a regional university in West Texas. I am not native to Texas, but then, who is? Half of the Rust Belt lives here! Anyway, I am originally from Michigan and when I dragged my (then) husband and my oldest daughter Laura down here so that I could finish my PhD work at Texas Tech, we just sort of stayed in the area. Laura (age 9) would be mortified if she knew I wrote that, by the way, so if you live in the area and see her, don't tell her I told you that she was really born in Ohio ;) 

Bill is originally from Massachusetts, and he moved down to Texas to be with me over a year ago now. He wasn't able to find work in his field (oxygen equipment) so he is going back to school. For nursing, we first thought, but he quickly realized that writing was his real love so he switched to English and is now studying to be a high school English teacher. So lest you think some sort of spicy inappropriate teacher/student liaison is going on here, let me reassure you that it isn't that way at all. (You know you were wondering.... :)

So every week we will post a new idea we find about reducing living expenses, or fun and cheap things to do. We are a family so we will focus on families but there a lot of these ideas can be helpful for single people as well, or college students, or seniors.... well... you get the idea.

Mainly we will focus on Texas but a lot of our ideas will be national in nature as we travel. So, we will label our posts accordingly. If it is about Texas we will label it "Texas" along with the location "Lubbock," "Concho Valley," "El Paso area," or the like. If it is outside of Texas we will label it "National" and then by the state. 

We will only post about places we have actually been or services we have actually used, but if you would like your product or service to be featured on our blog just e-mail us at: Living.Cheap.Lone.Star@gmail.com. New ideas are always welcome.