I'm addicted to Groupon...

As a Stay at Home Mom, there are a few major life changes that I have noticed (you know, aside from the having an amazing child to care for on a 24 hour basis):

1. Making your own coffee is not fun. My (whatever's on sale) coffee does not come out nearly as good as my $4 latte from my Penn Station Starbucks.

2. I am about 110% more busy than I was when I was working. Now, my days are totally filled with playdates, swim classes, cooking 3-4 meals a day, mommy & me gym classes, day trips to various places that house animals and intensive learn-to-crawl sessions on my bedroom floor.

3. Staying home = going out more during the day = the opportunity to spend more money (True story- I think the Kohl's cashiers might know me by name). Which brings me to my next point...

4. Although our home & my heart has exponentially grown in love, we have exponentially gone down in funds.

Being a Stay at Home Mom means living on one income, so our days of 4 vacations a year and our famous (well, to us anyway) $1,000 trips to the Home Depot are over! Now are the days of pinching pennies as best we can. We got rid of our cable & got an internet TV box & I price shop a lot when looking into any purchase. I tried doing the whole couponing thing, but honestly, I think food is the one place I cannot save! We eat primarily fresh produce & organic foods, so the coupons don't work for us usually. I do use coupons for baby items whenever possible, and of course, love my store coupons (especially when I get a Kohls 30% off hence see #3).

The one coupon-ish thing I do take advantage of are sites like Groupon & Living Social. Especially when there are deals for things to do with my son, or something for us to do as a family! While I do think that the experience you get when using a deal voucher is not always the same as if you were to pay full price, I think it is usually worth it. My most recent purchases were 4, hour long swim lessons for $29 & a 3 hour whale watching tour at the shore for $39 (for when we are vacationing there this summer). Not too shabby.

 I just love that these sites afford us experiences that we would otherwise, not be able to afford :)