Hi there!

I am a mum of two beautiful girls and the wife of one very lucky husband.  Whilst on maternity leave with my 2nd child I realised that the costs associated with putting both children in day care 5 days a week so I could continue working were completely outrageous. A round trip for me to go to work, drop the children off on the way, and back home again was 3 hours so I would leave home by 7 am, be home by 7 pm and still have to feed, bath and put my children to bed. I worked out that after all expenses I would be doing this for under $100 per week. That sure was a lot of work for less than $100 per week!! For this reason my husband applied for a transfer through his work, I resigned from my position and am now a stay at home mother living in a small town with a lot less expenses.

This is a HUGE lifestyle adjustment, I was feeling a bit lost so I joined a few of those parenting type facebook pages and read a few blogs, I kept seeing all these posts about “feed your family for $50 a week” but when I went to view them you had to buy the plan/book, or, they gave you a one week plan and said that it was expected that you had staples in your pantry. How would they know what was in my pantry? Why is it expected that I have a full spice rack, all types of flour, sugar, margarine, milk etc? They also indicated that people on this tight a budget can’t afford treats. If you really can only afford to feed your family for $50 a week and you can’t afford to eat treats, then I highly doubt you can afford to spend money to see if their meal plan will suit your family.  I decided I would challenge myself and see if I could do it too. My plan is $200 per month, with treats and all meals. It may not be pretty at times, some dishes are repeated, but the reality is that not every household eats gourmet meals every night. I call it the $200 challenge, and I challenge everyone to try it.

As well as the $200 per month challenge, I have created this website to show everyone the different ways my family and I save money. I love cooking so you can expect to see a lot of recipes for “real” food appear on this site over time. I will also be adding home made takeaway options (fake-aways) and other ideas to help our families save money.

Whenever I’m purchasing items online I always go to Cash Rewards first to see if I can get cash back on my purchase. Cash Rewards is a great way to save even more money on your purchases.

I am not a dietician, nor am I a food photographer. I have never blogged before and am a novice at this. I’m hoping that by starting this blog I may be able to help someone somewhere, it may be you, but if not, it may be your neighbour or a friend. When you look at this site, please remember I am a stay at home mum with two beautiful girls who love helping me in the kitchen. They are proud of anything mummy makes, they enjoy my food and hopefully you will too.

Thanks for Reading

Belinda