So to all the newcomers from ClarkHoward.com: Welcome to Saving the Crumbs! We are so glad that you have dropped by to visit, and we hope you enjoy what you find here. If you haven’t already (many of you have), please sign up for our email list to join our community of fellow Crumb Savers and get each new post delivered straight to your inbox. Just give us your email address in the box at the upper-right of this page.
What’s Saving the Crumbs All About?
Here at Saving the Crumbs, Deb and I share our personal approach to money and also what we’ve learned through our own experiences. Coming from our Bible-based Christian worldview, culturally cheap frugal Asian heritage, slightly geeky propensity toward calculators and spreadsheets, and a healthy dose of common sense with a dash of humor, hopefully our posts can show how money can be principled, understandable, and even a bit fun!
We aren’t experts, we aren’t professionals, and we certainly aren’t high and lofty “financial gurus”—we’re just sharing our personal financial journey and inviting you to hop on to join us for the ride. Be forewarned though, we often take the road-less-traveled when it comes to saving money!
Our sincere hope is that perhaps someone out there who stumbles upon this little nook on the Internet can find what they need to gain the confidence and inspiration to achieve financial freedom and a meaningful life for themselves and their loved ones.
For those who haven’t been here very long, I realize that there may be subjects you’d like to know about that we’ve covered before but aren’t easy to find. So I’ve compiled below a sampling of some of topics that you might find interesting. Of course, you’re always free to browse around, use the search bar, or just start at the very first post here and read through every single post we’ve written. (I dare you!)
Food Series – To start off, here’s quick access to the series featured on ClarkHoward.com. I’ve even included links to several recipes that Deb shared that breaks down the cost for us to make along with step-by-step instructions.
- How We Eat for Less Than $60 a Month: A Peek into Our Food Budget
- How We Eat for Less Than $60 a Month: Our Philosophy
- How We Eat for Less Than $60 a Month: What We Buy
- How We Eat for Less Than $60 a Month: How We Cook
- 4 Ingredient Pesto in 4 Easy Steps
- Easy Creamy Vegan Alfredo
Saving Money on Groceries – In what can be considered a companion series to our food series, these posts deal with ways we save on grocery shopping. We review Aldi, our favorite grocer of all, and other strategies that can be used to save every time we shop.
- Why ALDI Should Be Your Best Friend
- Supercharge Your Savings at ALDI: Weekly Specials
- Supercharge Your Savings at ALDI: Double Guarantee
- Supercharge Your Savings at ALDI: Price Matching
- 5 Steps to Find a Grocery Store that Saves You Money
- Gardening to Save the Crumbs
Our Financial Reports – To get a quick birds-eye view of where we’ve come so far in our Crumb-saving journey, check out our annual financial reports. We share candidly the actual numbers of our earnings, spending, saving, and giving. I also share a couple posts on how we budget.
- Our 2015 Finances Exposed!
- Our 2014 Finances Exposed!
- Our 2011-2013 Finances Exposed!
- How to Budget for Maximum Savings
- Revealing Our Monthly Budget
How We Paid Off Our House in 2 Years – Last summer, exactly two years to the day from when we closed on our house, we paid off our mortgage. These posts document the lessons we’ve learned along the way.
- How to Pay Off the House in 2 Years
- 7 Lessons As 1-year Homeowners
- Paying Off the House: Smart Move or Silly Mistake?
- Is a Home the Best Financial Investment?
- Is Borrowing from the House a Good Idea?
Saving Money With a Baby – The same month we paid off our house we welcomed our first child, Little Miss Crumb Saver into our home. Babies are guaranteed to bust any budget, so we’ve been told, and so we’ve written a few posts on this portion of our financial journey as well. (Spoiler: The cost of babies have been greatly exaggerated.)
- There’s a Crumb in the Oven!
- What Does a Baby Really Need?
- How To Save Money on Cloth Diapers
- Do Cloth Diapers Save Money?
Saving Money on Smartphones – One of the things we get asked about the most is how we get unlimited talk, text, and data on our iPhones for only $20 a month. (With tax included!) Here are the posts where we break it all down, plus we throw in a few other posts on how to get smartphones for cheap.
- Is Your Cellphone Plan Ripping You Off?
- Does Your Cellphone Service Do This?
- So I Just Bought Two iPhones for ½ Off…
- An Update on Glyde
- Saving $320 on an iPhone 6 Plus with Swappa
Saving Money with Every Purchase – In this series we share about a number of services that can help us save money on nearly every purchase we ever make. Cardpool is an especially brilliant idea.
- How to Never Pay Full Price for Anything (Almost): Cardpool
- How to Never Pay Full Price for Anything (Almost): BigCrumbs
- How to Never Pay Full Price for Anything (Almost): Swagbucks
- 7 Ways to Save Even More On Amazon
Saving Money on Utilities – Utility costs are ongoing month after month, so even a slight reduction in costs can yield large long-term savings.
- How to Save Water
- How to Save on Your Electricity Bill
- Cheap Ways to Stay Cool in Summer
- Cheap Ways to Stay Warm in Winter
- How We Get Paid By Our Power Company with Solar Panels
- 1-Year Solar Panel Update
At the top of 2016, I shared a similar post summarizing various other posts to help you save more money this year. Check out that post for more on topics like how to save on weddings, investing, dealing with debt, and lots more!
We have lots of ideas for future articles, and we’ll resume posting our regular content next time, but let us know in the comments below if there are certain topics that you’re particularly curious about. We’d love to hear from you! And once I again, a very big “Welcome!” to all those joining us this weekend!
