How to Save Money While Raising Young Children w/ Caroline Vencil

doing it better than her. Prove it to us if you think right, and we picked her brain on how to save money on everything related to young kids, so whether it's at home, at school, birthdays, like everywhere. So if you have young children or are about to, this is definitely the episode for you. Also excited because we're recording this in the same room. That's always exciting for me. Sharing a microphone too, yes, between one mike, one shared mike.

We've got approximately a microphones. But we're sharing this, right, So let's get into our sponsors and then we'll dive into our interview. Also brought to you by Travis. That's right, it's a shout out to Jen's husband because it's his birthday. A little about our sponsor. He's five ft ten inches. No idea how much he weighs, nor would I tell you all. He has beautiful, long, curly hair and a

beard to be admired. He likes long walks through flea markets to find treasures which he can resell out of profit. In his spare time, Travis finishes up home projects, buys vehicles, then resells them and buys them again, considers ways to get free food. Travis is an excellent father and shows deep concern when his son cries and always make sure he doesn't fall off the couch. Furthermore, Travis is a great friend and will help you repair your broke down

car on the side of the road. I have experience Travis. Everyone should have one in their lives, but this one's mine. Oh well, he's kind of shared. Let's be honest. Happy Birthday Travis by by bar And if you are in our Frugal Friends community on Facebook, share a gift wishing sweet Travis a happy birthday. Yes there because they're they're free, so yes, he'll love them all right, So without further ado, Caroline Vencil is an award winning blogger. She is a mom, mom, mom,

prenewer to the max. I tried to make up a word. She is all that and a bag of chips and a fantastic friend. So super excited to share her knowledge with you. Here is Caroline. Now I want chips. Caroline, thank you so much for being on the show. I am so excited to have you. You were one of my very first friends in the personal finance space and so I've I've just loved you for so long and God, we're finally getting on the show. Oh thanks, Jen. I

just think that the star is aligned. And we found each other in that random fin Con group of like who wants to share a room, and it's like we've been friends ever since. And then I ruined your your pregnancy announcement. That a whole another story for any secrets, and I didn't need the first thing you need to know. But and I'm excited because we're from the same state, and apparently we live an hour and a half away

right in Pennsylvania right now. I'm in Florida, yes, and we are right next to each other, all right, So we didn't invite you to reminisce as much as we could do that for so long. We really want to hear about tips on how to save while raising young kids. This is something I am especially interested in as I have I will soon have young children because my baby is eventually hopefully going to turn into one and I want to hopefully if you do it right. So yeah,

that's uh, that's what I want to know. But first I want everybody else to hear how you became the ultimate money saving my on that like why we brought you on here. I want everyone to hear that story. That's a lofty title. Holy Carol, you burned it. Thank you off with that title. Oh my gosh, crown a sash like princess waves in the mail. Yes, I'm looking for it, guys. Okay, So hi, I am Caroline vincil Um. I am a mom of four, wife of one for

mom of three cats and a dog. And my whole claim to fame, I guess, is really that my husband and I got pregnant in our freshman year of college, unexpectedly obviously because he would do that. Don't do that, um, And we lived off of his income of ten dollars an hour, which went up to eleven dollars an hour, which was a big deal for us for four years UM. And in that period of time, we round up buying two cars, um, saving up enough money to put down a down payment on a house that we still own, UM,

and adding two more kids to our family. And it has been quite a journey um. But we lived off of seventeen thousand dollars take home for four years and it was tough. And we are very opposites in our relationship. I'm a saver by nature. He is a spender um, boardering on a compulsive for both of us. So we are like constantly like at odds all the time about like we should buy this, and like no, we should save that. Um. But it has been quite a journey

and it doesn't happen overnight. But yeah, I am still at my very nature like frugal. Like when we get together for finn Com, we're like, all right, guys, where are we getting free food today? Like that is our whole thing because there are are my people, yes, oh my gosh, yes. And what are the ages of your kids? Okay, So I have a nine and a half year old, a six and a half year old and almost five year old and an almost one year old. Wow. Yeah, I

have a lot of children. So literally, any mom or dad listening into this, like you're the expert here, right, four kids and four animals and just the what you've had to overcome to get to where you're at, that's amazing. And even still that you are now like bringing home an income, you're living you're still living on your husband's just your husband's income. Yeah, it's actually like it sounds like really silly to say this because it's like I do. Obviously,

I work. This is my job is talking to you amazing people and helping other people to save money. But we still live off of his one income, like we are. Our bank account is still just his money. We use that for our groceries, for our mortgage expenses, for like the electric bill, gas, All that stuff comes right out of his paycheck, and all of mine go to savings and building college funds and saving for another down payment

on another house. Yes, so it's a little bit more than seventeen thousand now, but yeah, but yead for four years, that's no joke. Yeah, that was our take home every other week. I'm so sorry if you heard that. That was my son throwing something on the floor. Um, every other week he would get a seven D and fifty

R paycheck. Wow, every other week. I know this is not in the outline, but those are a lot of barriers that you had to work through, getting pregnant unexpectedly when you had other goals in mind, and then living off of low, low income Like okay, that was ten years ago, but that was still that's still a low

income even ten years ago. Yeah. Yeah, I like full disclosure because I know that we didn't plan on talking about this, But my whole life aspiration was I wanted to be the youngest CEO of a fortune company by the time I was well. So this is kind of my favorite thing in the world is I started my blog when I was twenty four, and then the day before I was twenty five, I filed my LC paperwork as a CEO, so I got to be a CEO.

It was so much fun. But that was my plan, was like I'm going to go and I had my whole like I'm going to do with my junior year in college abroad in France, and then I'm going to go to Spain and I'm going to be a marketing executive and then a CEO and then it was just

like pregnant crap. Everything changed, Everything changed, and it was like this mental shift of like, now I get to be there for this little person and it doesn't matter what my aspirations were, like survival was the thing, Like we had to survive and I had to figure out a way to make that happen. So thus the story of frugality beginning. Yes, yeah, has borne in you some amazing expert tips and and an ability I think to

weather a lot. Which we all come to frugality for different reasons, but yeah, that's it's a it's a main one right out of just life circumstances forcing us to figure this out. And we either we either don't. We either succumb and we amass crazy amounts of debt or we say no and I'm still going to get at some of my aspirations and we're still going to do this thing and live a life that I'm proud of.

So well done, and let's keep going. So with all these children that you have, what have you noticed with your biggest expenses? I'm sure they shift throughout the years, but when you're seeing so clothes are a huge one that like I mean, I'm thankful that I have three boys who all just wear hand me downs. My poor youngest son has never I don't think ever worn a new outfit to him. But like I go thrift shopping constantly. Um,

they don't. I don't do like trendy stuff. We don't do like you know, getting ugg boots or something for my kids because they're boys. I'm realistic, Like they get holes in every pair of jeans, So I'm not going to spend thirty dollars and kids jeans like I'm going to get it at Salvation Army or Goodwill. Um. So, definitely, clothes is a big one. Food not surprising when you have a horde of children is like this big thing. And trying to feed them like good food because we're

casually a little bit bougie. Um, we like to try to feed them like homemade meals, organic food if we can. Um. And so a lot of times they've eate an organic beans and rice because it was cheap, which is so good because a lot of people are like, oh, I can't bring my grocery bill down because I'm really committed to buying organic, Like they make organic beans and rice. Young I mean, it is sixty cents more than the right,

but that's still only a dollar. It's true. And I mean, like we also shop at like al d, we shop at Costcow. But my favorite thing is like discount grocery stores, which is kind of like Aldi. And I'm told that it's not like this everywhere. Maybe it's just like a regional thing. But like if you google like discount grocery stores in your area, there's a lot of places where it's like they have like bent boxes and they'll sell it to you for like seventy five cents in the

three bucks. So I am about that your area, Lancaster really does have the hook up. Like there are people from our area who will drive an hour and a half two hours to where you live for some of those grocery stores, even if they're not directly in your area, they might be an hour, hour and a half away, and you do a trip a month or something. Yeah, because it's worth it. I mean, we spend seventy five dollars a week on groceries. That's our budget for six people.

And it has them are boys, and four of them are boys, and they eat a lot. Guys boys are different. They ate dinner, and before I could even get to the table to sit down with my food, my nine year old was like, can I get another bowl? I'm like, are you kidding me? More than I do. But so that's like a big expense clothes, food, Um, I think that those are kind of are really our biggest expenses with them right now, because you can make the choice.

Like with our our son, he's really good at baseball, he could have gone onto the like five travel team, but instead, because I'm not about that like traveling all around the state kind of life. Right now, he's on the seventy five for the year local wreck team. And then if he gets good enough and we can promise that he won't be good enough like then we'll talk

about that later. But I mean, you don't have to put your kids in a ton of different activities like there are free there are free or frugal options, like it's it's a it's a choice. You don't have to. I have no plans to put my daughter into ballet. I don't. I think that that's a huge one, certainly what you've talked about food, clothing, Yes, and then there are ways to figure that out if you want to figure that out. But then these extracurriculars. I feel like

people don't talk about that. What do you do? You've got kids who are of the age where there is soccer and baseball and dance and and school stuff, like you want to stay after and do a craft at

school and it's fifty dollars. I don't have kids, so, but that's like, that's my impression of what's happening crafts or or you know, bringing in my mom's being the snack person every couple of weeks, and then you and you've got to be the craft And then all these holidays are coming up, and I see all these moms on Facebook. Oh, I'm responsible for the Valentine's Day craft. I'm responsible for the St. Patrick's Day aft And it's just like for how many kids? What for the whole school?

What do you what's happening here? How do you handle that? How do you get all those things vying for your money and not even not even enjoyable for you? I know, I steer into the skid. I am not a Pinterest mom. I have said this from day one. I will burn water if you give me an opportunity. I am not about the crafting and like we're just gonna make snow

flakes out of coffee filters for fun. And then's not me, like you want to start a lemonade stand, Like let's talk about business plans and marketting like all of that stuff. But like, so here's what I do is I volunteer to bring napkins brandy napkins and it's actually toilet paper. But don't tell anybody. It's not even like holiday branded napkins. Like it's literally like I get the giant box of like the Costco brand napkins, and I grab a bunch

of them and I bring it in. Yeah, it sounds super ratchet when I say things a guy, but at the same time, like I'm not going to spend six dollars getting thirty Valentine's Day theme napkins for a kindergartener class. I'm just not going to do it. Like I know

my limitations and I know where my skills are. Um, and so I will either not offer to bring anything, which I have done because I can use the excuse of like I got four kids, I'm not paying for a Valentine's Day party for each one of them, or I volunteer to bring something that I know, I can like go out and get bred solo cups because they're red and look, it's Valentine's theme here. You go be happy with it, you know. Like I try to take

as easy of a route as I can. Um it's maybe this is just my personality type or this is just years and years and years of practice. But like I am completely done with mom guilts. I like of the guilt of like, well you should be bringing in the cute little heart shaped cookies for Valentine's Day with the frosting, like do a cry as it's like, that's not what I'm about. Like, if you want me to

be there, I will be present. I will help, I will do the crafts, I will take the pictures, you know, but I'm not going to bring I'm not going to spend thirty dollars for my kindergartener and another thirty dollars for my third grader. It's not going to happen. Like next year're gonna have three in school. It's not going to happen. It's just not so y'all get napkins period.

I love that you feel fine and that you've let go of that mom get in what you're comfortable bringing what you can bring, what you have capacity for right now. I think so much of that relates to certainly a confidence, but also boundaries that you're comfortable having and and to be able to say, yeah, this is where I'm at and I'm not going to pick up what somebody else expects of me. I think that's where we can get

caught up in this trap of spending money. Right We talk about this when it comes to friends, like don't go out for drinks and dinner if you've got food at home, save your money. It's the same concept here with kids. Don't feel like you've got to bring the most amazing craft that laughs at last last a lifetime. Craft that last a lifetime. That's a tongue twist, but it's so true. Yeah, it's like peer pressure, but for moms like, oh it's so real, which I've heard is

stronger than regular peer pressure from birth. It happens from birth. Yeah, it's like how long was your labor? Oh? Mine was eighteen hours more and I did it without nbadural And people are like they throw that around from like the second they're born. But it's like that with like we send our kids because obviously we've chosen that this is important to us, and this is where we spend our money. We send our kids to private school instead of our

local public school. Um, and it is like so rampant because it's a private school and so people like to throw on their money and a sure and I until, like the past year, we drove around in our two thousand and five Honda Odyssey with two d thousand miles on it where the doors wouldn't open and so we had to like yank them open. And like there's Becky in her Tahoe and she's like, I brought all of these that I had at a place in Philly, which is an hour and a half wish, Like it's not

a big deal, it's gourmet. I'm like, I brought napkins, napkins from Costco that are in a ziploc bag because I'm not bringing the whole thing, Like you can't have all my napkins. No, No, we don't even use toilet paper from the bathroom and broken up into pieces that looks like a nap because it might be that would do me. This is why I'm not a mom. I would care so little. But that's like it is there's something so freeing and just not caring, like when you

show up there like, yeah, here are my napkins. No, they're not branded for Valentine's Day, they're not for St. Patrick's Day, they're not for Halloween. But here you go. It's what I said i'd bring them. Here's here are the napkins that will eventually end up in the garbage that you're going to wipe your kindergarteners like messy faith on, I don't care what they look like. Right, Speaking of classroom parties, I know that in in the course I ran in January, a lot of my students had problems

with their spend challenge. They didn't want to force it on their kids, and so one of them had a kid. Their kids birthday party was their kid's birthday was coming up, and they wanted to spend money on their kids birthday and they're like, can I spend money on my child's birthday? I'm on a no spend child And I was like, well, yes, you can do that, But like, the point is to get creative and how you do it not just assume that you have to do the same thing all the

other parents are doing. So like how do you do birthdays and birthday parties in your house? I feel like you have a lot of great ideas. Oh my gosh, this is actually the first year that we've ever thrown a party for one of our kids. It was for my oldest he turned nine. This was the first year I ever did a party for him. And that like, I know that there are some people who are like, mom, shame, how dare you? And it's like, I have four kids.

I have four kids, and we have like never really like come from a place of like money, Like we just were like, this is what we do. And so every year I have this is so embarrassing. I have crepe paper, like you know, the giant like rolls of like the tissue paper that you get for like the doily thingies that you hang. I don't even know how to explain it. It's like to the paper and you we like spiral it around the house. So we put it in front of their door so they get to

walk through it. There's balloons. We've had this stuff though for years, like because I have it, and I get it in the kid's favorite colors and then we just do like a rainbow of it. They get to pick out their favorite breakfast make it. It's usually chocolate chip pancakes.

They get to pick out their dinner, which is usually macaroni and cheese, and like, I don't even know if it's like French fries, Like it's not, no, I know, how dare I write like I'm such a sackerge But it's the truth is like they get to be the king for the day and they make their decisions about like they tell us what we want to do. We do whatever they want. And a lot of times it's something like we go to the park that they want to go to, and we have an aquarium that we

have in membership too. For the year, we go to the aquarium. Like it's things that don't cost money. So this was the first year ever that we spent on our kids for like an actual birthday party. Um, And we went to a laser tag place that I said to my son, I'm like, you can pick four or sorry five five friends that you want to bring and I will pay for them. And it still wound up being a hundred dollars, but it was for five hours for six people playing laser tag and video games and

it was a lot of fun. That's something special. Yeah, And it was a memory that I know that he's going to to really enjoy um. And that's kind of my whole thing is I grew up rich. That sounds like a total jerk thing to say, but like I grew up where my parents would always buy us stuff, like whatever we wanted, we were given. And then they went through a nasty divorce and both filed for bankruptcy and it was terrible. But the thing that it taught me was like, I don't remember any of that stuff.

I don't remember any of the like mountains of Christmas presents that we got. I don't remember what I got from my birthday. I remember the dumb things that we did when we went to the fish store and like looked at all the cool fish together when we went um, like learned how to skip rocks across the river, like

things like that. And so I take those memories that I have as a kid and I reply that to my own kids, where it's like they're not going to remember what to buy them, They're gonna remember what we do together. And that's kind of how I tried to treat their days, is I want to make them feel special, not buy them something special to me. It's kind of I'm trying to build a relationship with my kids. I want them to like each other. I want them to like us. I don't want them to look back on

their childhood and be like, we didn't do anything. It was boring. I don't have any fond memories, and that, to me was more important. You know what's not boring The bill of the weed. That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. That's built Buffalo Bills, Bill Clinton. This is the build of the week, Caroline.

Every week we ask our us and listeners to share with us their favorite bill from recent times. Do you have a bill for us, any kind of build anything. Okay, it's my father in law, Bill. But wait, wait wait. He has a YouTube channel with more than a hundred thousand subscribers as of this week for ambient guitar music Bill Bill, Bill Music and Music. What's the channel. It's Chords of Orian I know, Wow, he's the coolest Bill I know. He sounds like the coolest Bill I know,

the only Bill I know. Actually, we've been waiting to meet many actual Bill. Have Bill call in. We have yet to have an actual Bill. If your name is Bill, or you know somebody named Bill, please is you will be our Frugal Friends dot Com slash Bill and leave a voicemail or speak pipe message and we want to hear like from somebody named Bill. That's our dream. But the universe somebody named Bill has to call into the Frugal Friends podcast. Yeah, and now it's time for the

Lightning Run. Thank you very soon, very soon, as soon as we get this audio. Yeah. Alright, So for today's Lightning Round, I really want us all to share one thing that we wanted that our parents just would not guess. Go first, Caroline first, as as our guest, what is one thing your parents that your parents would not get you that you really want to YEA gift you just never got? A Fellow nineties babies, do you guys remember the catalogs where it was the mom and the daughter

with the giant hats and the matching dresses. Wait wait, and the doll that had the matching dress with that and it was always sunflower. Yeah, Oh my gosh, I always wanted that my mom was super fashionable and was like, I would never wear that, So you wanted to match your mom? I did. Oh. I didn't mean to make you guys sad. I think that's the whole point of the second We're all just gonna feel sad for our

younger self. Oh next level. Oh yeah, but I remember those dolls, like the American Girl dolls and stuff, and yeah, I didn't get one of those either. That could have been mine. It wasn't, but that could have been mine. I did have an American Girl doll, but it was never my desire to match with the doll and with my mom simultaneously. Oh my gosh, that could have been so good. Like why weren't more Christmas portraits taken that way? I know, it's opportunities. What about um? So mine was

life size Barbie products, so like life size Barbie. Um, and then like you could you could theoretically like wear her clothes, but like I was always a chunky girl, and I would have never been able to fit into her clothes. Chunky I was, I mean, I was cute, chunky, I just wouldn't have been into the life size Barbie clothes, Like, let's just put it that way. It would have been a letdown. But I knew that. I still knew that, and I still wanted one because I was an only

child and I really wanted a friend. You know this really like heart breaking, don't You wanted didn't mean to take this is deep stuff like Caroline, you just wanted to be like your mom and she wouldn't let you. GEN just wanted a friend. Like we are getting into counseling territory. I didn't know that this is where it would go. Guys, when I came up with the question,

I also wanted to cheap. I wanted the Barbie deep you could ride into No why because you town run away from your problems one of the five clothes you can fit in. So okay, Joe, what was your conversation? I think I might redeem this because it's very lighthearted. Apparently I wanted I looked it up. I wanted one of those. It's called a fairy flyer. The one way you would launch, you would you would pull the string and the fairy would like twirl into the air. I

thought they were the coolest things, guys. They're only currently right now, six dollars online, and I can beg you any amount of money. That's probably all. It was fifteen years ago. How old am I? Oh my gosh, no, twenty years ago or five years ago. Really wanted one my freshman year. Okay, years ago, they still were probably on these six dollars. Um. I don't know if this I see. The thing is, I'm not even sure that

I told my parents that I really wanted one. I may not even verbalize this desire, but all of my friends had them. I probably did. I don't know my parents just if they thought it was junk, they weren't going to get it for me. Plus, there were a few periods where we were just pow and I never got a fairy flyer, but I could play with my friends. Yeah, yeah,

I remember those. Yeah, they were cool. It felt like a helicopter that but like you didn't need a remote control, because lord knows, I would not have been able to operate a remote control fairy, so it was good. You just pull a string and launched the thing into the air. I thought it was cool. Control ferry the next thing, right now, Yeah, you're drone ferry. That's I don't want that I didn't want to have to control and I just wanted to pull a string and watch it fly

in the air. Imagine that I could fly to It was a lot less depressed, you going, We're getting there. You were sick twisted child too. Wow. Alright, Well, now that we've like bared our souls, if you are part of our Frugal Friends community and you have something either traumatic or lighthearted either one, let us know in the group if you had something similar, or if you also had the same once that we did, whether it be emotional or or plastic. Let us know Frugal Friends community

on Facebook or Frugal's podcast dot com slash group. Uh, Caroline, thanks so much for hanging out with us. We had some technical difficulties that I don't know if you'll be able to catch on the actual podcast, but man, this was fun. We got to meet your child. I think we got to meet your cat hat in the background, like you heard your husband laughing. It was Yeah, it felt like this family episode definitely felt like a family affair and it was it was perfect. I think Caroline

for having me. Yeah, where can people go to learn more about you and what you do? You can find me at Caroline Bencel dot com and Vencel is spelled like pencil but with a a um. And same thing at Caroline Bencel on Instagram because I am in there every day sharing more our real life with messy bun and no makeup. Yes, and she's always in Instagram stories being real and helping other moms get through the realness. So definitely go find her and yeah, thanks and we'll

see guys. Wow, that was awesome. I love talking to Caroline. She is in my mastermind and we talk every week sometimes twice a week and on Instagram and I still cannot pick her brain enough. Yeah, it always amazes me to hear people's stories really of overcoming I don't think that ever gets old, and I think that's what it's

what we need to hear on a regular basis. But it's especially inspiring for those of us who find ourselves and positions of really pinching pennies or in a season of deep struggle to hear my word, this person gets it. This isn't just somebody talking at me because they've written a book. This is she's been there and and really gone through it and has come out the other side. Yeah, she's in some ways. In some ways, you know, she's describing like being the mom of four and like multiple pets.

But yeah, she's she's got so much going on and she does so much. But what I really appreciate about her is that she also delegates when she knows she's at her limit. And that is something I know deeply struggle with. Have limits. Yeah, that's the thing. Yeah, bring the paper plates. I admire her. So I'm I'm so glad that you guys got to hear and thanks so much for listening. Thanks for sticking around to the end. Um, and we want to thank you for listening and reviewing

and sharing the show. So every month we do a ten dollar Amazon gift card giveaway to our friends who Sharon review the show kind of like our friend oh some but it's oh, I think it's stay at home mom. I think it's an acronym. Um. But she gave the start the show a five star review and said good information and also fun. I'm loving this podcast. They present useful information in a very fun way. So I come away encouraged on my debt free journey. So thank you.

I hope you listen to this episode. I hope you got something out of it. Yeah, So, as Jenn mentioned, we want to thank all of our friends who share these episodes on social media. Uh and when you share the latest episode by tagging us on Facebook or Instagram, we will add you to our monthly drawing. So that includes for every five tags and reviews we get each month, we pick one winner for a ten dollar Amazon gift card. So that means that there can be multiple winners in

a month, depending on how many tags and reviews we receive. Yes, so keep leaving us those reviews on iTunes and Stitcher, or if you listen somewhere else where you have the option lead review, use screenshot it and send it to Frugal Friends Podcasts at gmail dot com and also tag us at Frugal Friends podcast on Instagram or Facebook. Perfect. So yeah, Frugal Friends is produced, edited and mixed by

Eric Syria. It's very late at night, Mike. So the great thing about Jill living in my backyard right now is that we have access to record whenever we need to. And and the bad thing about Eric living in my backyard is that I can't get in bed after a shower and pull out my phone. And here we need to rerecord this is natural, and then I have to get up out of my bed. I mean, Eric, oh gosh, well you don't have a microphone right now, so you can't talk. I'll talk, he I mean, I will say

I'm glad that he edits it. I'm glad for the attention to detail. And then if it were up to me, if it were up to me, this podcast would have gotten the fake sponsor half cut off. We wouldn't have done an outro, and what you get is what you get, right. If it were up to me, I'd never have my right mike audio and I'd said just blank. Files would pretty much just be. We never would have made into

five hundred downloads, guaranteed, absolutely not. It takes a village all that to say, thank you, Eric, and happy birthday, trapped birthday, all right, turn it off, Eric, Eric,