You can read the first part of this series here.

I’ve always been a fan of the “This is Your Life” concept. If there were a made-for-tv movie highlighting all of the events in my life leading up to my current state of frugality, I think it might look something like this.

Cue soundtrack. Cut to slideshow of old family pictures. Begin voice-over of Kaley speaking.

The early years–I’m the one with the finger in my mouth

“I grew up poor.

Wow, that feels weird to say. I think I had no idea how poor we were. My parents worked hard to find creative ways to keep us from feeling poor. And rarely did we talk about money being tight.

But, the salary of a small country church pastor is small and our family was large, so we were definitely poor.

If I had to do it all over, I think I might grow up poor again. (Although I might choose to be filthy rich the third time around!) For a lot of reasons.

First of all, I learned how little I really needed. Cut to scene of young girl sitting contentedly on ugly orange carpet. I was the kid who wore her sister’s hand-me-downs with pride, had no hate about the ugly orange carpet in her teeny tiny bedroom, and was completely unfazed by the fact that the guy she dated in high school had a brand new red sports car. And I promise I wasn’t weird.

I also learned that I liked to save my money. At some point when I was younger, my parents gave us a set of three envelopes to keep track of our money. We labeled them Savings, Tithe, and Spending. I would separate any money that I earned into those three envelopes. My favorite envelope was the one for savings. Maybe I was secretly hoping to save enough to replace that ugly, orange carpet…I don’t know.

Being poor also meant that I saw God provide for me a lot. When I was in college, my parents moved overseas to become missionaries in Korea. So our family’s pay scale changed from poor to dirt poor. To be honest, I’m not sure how I was able to afford college. But, over and over, God showed His care for me in the form of financial provision.

Cut to scene of college-aged girl in line at the grocery store, searching through her purse. Whether it was the $.25 that I found on the day that all I needed was a quarter or the $100 bills that would show up randomly from a secret provider or the woman behind me in line at Kroger who paid for the rest of my grocery bill when I didn’t have enough money–I knew my lack of funds was not a problem that was too big for God.

There were a few things that being poor did not teach me, however. Learning to be wise in my money management was one of them. Cut to scene of girl standing in the middle of a bank, crying. Loudly. The day that I stood in the middle of my bank sobbing uncontrollably because I had bounced my first check was one evidence of my lack of money sense. (I’ve always felt sorry for that poor bank teller.)

Cut to scene of girl devouring a pack of Twizzlers. I also signed up for a credit card in college because by doing so, I would get a pack of Twizzlers. By the time I was done with college, that was the most expensive pack of Twizzlers I have ever purchased. I had a good chunk of debt and little idea of how to get rid of it.

Then I married Wes.”

To be continued…

While we are still in the ‘getting to know each other’ stage, I thought I’d like to share this series with you.  You may have already read it if you followed me over from my other blog.   We owe you part 4, however, so I will re-post parts 1, 2, and 3 here first!

Do you ever look at your life and wonder, “How did I get here?” Lately I’ve been asking myself that question about the frugal, deal-seeking, coupon freak fan I have become.

Less than a year ago, I would have told you that yes, I liked to save money. But coupons were those pretty papers that I threw out with the newspaper and my idea of thrifty was filling up my diet coke to the brim when I left McDonald’s.

Now I’m making my own baby food. Whaa–what?!

In fact, a friend e-mailed me today after reading my blog and asked me what has happened to me. How did I become so interested in this world of saving money?

And so, I’ve been thinking. How did I get here? It’s a really good question to ponder.

For those of you who don’t know, my husband was laid off almost a year ago. Since that time, we have experienced a variety of new and different life situations, including the birth of our second son, some temporary employment positions, and months of no job at all.

This, of course, was the kick in the pants that I needed to begin seeking out new ways to cut costs in just about every year of our lives. I really didn’t want to. But I had to.

So, I guess that’s how I got here.

But wait, there’s more…

Because in the past year, in spite of both cars breaking down and me giving up my job, and the birth of a new baby, and our vacuum cleaner going on the fritz and life happening, we have managed to make it without ever having to touch our savings.

And it wasn’t because of all the extrabucks I earned at CVS.

I’m thinking about taking a trip down the road aways to explore ‘how we got here’. It’s sure to include glimpses of my childhood, my life as a poor m.k. college student, and my marriage into the Ehret family. In fact, I’ve asked Wes if he’d like to share a ‘guest post’, which promises to be fun.

Mostly, I think it will be about a journey down the path of God’s grace.

Wanna come?