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Greetings. I'm SeeAPenny, and I've been lurking in on this online community for a short while, enjoying the discussion boards and journals most especially. As such, I've decided to emerge from lurk-mode to initiate a saving journal of my own. I know I will find it a useful tool in keeping track of my family's financial goals....

I was raised in a comfortably frugal household. My parents, both depression-era farm kids from very large families, clearly understood how to live practically and within their means as they raised their four children. Finally, as a 30-something adult with a husband and two children of my own, can I now fully appreciate my parents' lifelong accomplishments.

As a homeschooling SAHM, my husband I have made countless conscientious decisions in our spending habits and lifestyle over the course of our 13 year marriage, to make it possible to continue raising a family on one income and get by. Nevertheless, I have gradually begun to realize I am now at a point in life where I want and need far more for myself and my family than merely to 'get by'. In fact, I'm aiming to fully thrive -- it is my goal in 2005 to educate myself more thoroughly in financial matters, pay off that nagging little c.c. balance for once and for all, build upon our savings and retirement, invest, initiate plans for major home improvements on our 100 year old fixer upper, actively prepay our mortgage if even just a little every month, better organize my time and household, and achieve greater personal fiscal security and responsibility. I know every one of these ambitions is entirely within reach. Accomplishing them however, will require taking our current budgeting to a deeper level, along with lifestyle changes, for lesser or smaller, along the way. It will require, as I like to call it, 'nth degree' frugality -- a challenge which I presently feel ready, willing, and empowered to meet.....

I plan to use this journal to record and keep track of my various activities, both large and small and no matter how mundane (or successful), that bring my family closer to our savings goals.....