How This all Started

The name of this blog, (Un)Accidentally Green is a play on words.  It was NOT an accident that I am trying to save green (money) but it WAS an accident that I became green (environmentally friendly).  I have never been what you would call "Green" or "crunchy".  I bottle fed my kids, I used disposable diapers, and I basically live for convenience.  Apparently, though, in trying to save money I have begun doing some things that would be considered exactly that.

First, some background.  Last year things were going great, my husband had a good job, I graduated college and got a good job.  We moved into a great house, all the bills were paid on time, we had a savings for the first time in a long time, and we had just bought a new truck.  Life was good.  BUT, in January, just two weeks after signing the papers on that truck my husband was laid off.  

He was able to collect unemployment although it wasn't nearly what he was making when he was working.  He immediately began searching for a job but had no luck at all.  He signed up with a couple of temp agencies and throughout the next several months he had a few odd jobs through them but nothing that lasted more than 1 or 2 days and they were few and far between. During this time we were slowly becoming behind on the bills and rent was being paid later and later every month.  At one point we even had an eviction notice.  Around about August he finally got a job.  It was a job that didn't pay well and would require him to be out of town a lot but he took it anyway because it was a job.  His first week he was sent out of state and was told it was fine to leave the truck in the parking lot at the job while he was away (he rode in a company truck with another worker).  That night the wheels were stolen off the truck.  We decided it was best not to continue at that job.  He continued on his quest to find a good job.  Finally in October he was offered a position working for the city water department.  It still doesn't pay what he was making before but its with the city so what it lacks in pay it makes up for in benefits.  He is still there, yay!  And we are finally starting to catch up on the bills.

Having gone through all of this and still being in the position of playing catch up, I have decided to embark on a quest of my own to save money.  This blog will be about my journey to save my family money and what I am learning along the way.  It seems that some of my money saving efforts are turning me into a bit of a "crunchy" person, but that is OK.

I won't be going all "save the environment" on you, although that is very important to me, I won't preach to you about it.  I'm not all "organic is better", I buy what is on sale and if it happens to be organic then yay.  What I will do is share with you the recipes I have found for things like home made soaps, detergents, deodorant, etc. and stuff like how I make my grocery list and the best stores to shop for the best savings.