Hi, and welcome. I'm a mom of three, a wife, and for about ten years I was the person behind the counter at a small community bank, first as a teller and later processing car and home loans. In 2021, when our third baby arrived, my husband Mike and I did the math on daycare for three kids and decided I would stay home. That decision is the reason this blog exists.
Going from two incomes to one was harder than the spreadsheet said it would be. The first six months we overspent almost every single month, mostly on groceries and the small stuff that never feels like spending. So I started writing things down: every receipt, every bill, every phone call to the internet company. Those notes became this site.
What you'll find here
- Budgeting with our real numbers, including a monthly grocery report for our family of five.
- Saving money on the everyday things: kids' clothes, birthdays, holidays, back-to-school.
- Bills and insurance, where I share what happened when I called around, compared quotes and asked for a better rate.
- Recipes that feed five for not much, most of them tested on a picky four-year-old.
- Home, cleaning and garden projects from our 1970s ranch house and its very big backyard.
A few honest notes
I'm not a financial advisor or an insurance agent, and nothing on this site is personal financial advice. It's what worked (and what didn't) for one family in Ohio. Your situation is your own, so check the numbers against your own life.
Some posts contain affiliate links, which means the blog may earn a small commission if you sign up or buy through them, at no extra cost to you. You can read exactly how that works on the disclosure page.
Have a question or a money-saving idea I should test? Write to me at info@pennywisehomemaker.com. I read every e-mail, usually after the kids are in bed.