Newspaper Interview, Part 1

Somehow, a writer for a newspaper in the Middle East found my blog and asked if she could interview me about mine and Darin's Quiverfull beliefs.  The paper is titled The National.  I can't even begin to imagine what she's going to write, but thought I would include my answers to her questions here.  I'll have to do it over several days.  By the time I was done, I had 10 pages in a Word document!  :-)

First for the easy stuff...

1. As I understand it from your blog, you have five children all of whom are home-schooled. Where do you live and how old are the kids? 
We live in a suburb of Dallas, TX.  Our kids are 13, 10, 8, 3 & 1.

2. How do you manage expenses, grocery bills?
Grocery bills:  Our weekly grocery bill is usually somewhere between 120-150.  I try real hard to keep it closer to the 120 end. 

1)      I do this by rarely buying processed foods.  I stick to the edges of the grocery store where the produce, meat, eggs and milk are. 
2)      I make as much from scratch as possible.  It’s so much cheaper that way, and really, healthier for us since I don’t have any hydrogenated oils sitting around my pantry.  ;-)
3)      I use coupons.  I regularly save $25-$50 a week with coupons. 
4)      For personal care items, I take advantage of the CVS Extra Care Bucks program.  I can get soap, diapers, toothbrushes & etc. at deeply discounted prices when I combine the Extra Care Bucks with my coupons.  It’s such a blessing!
5)      I wrote a blog entry on what we do with a turkey.  Our family can eat an entire week on one turkey – not just turkey sandwiches, but good food.  Here’s the entry: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/BeccaBeard/668226/

For other expenses, we budget so much per month and try not to spend more than that.  Our ongoing budgets in which we have money especially set aside are: car, clothing, school, birthdays (3 of our kids were born within a month of each other.  On year, we were broke by the time it was over, so decided to start a fund.), pest control, medical, and we have an emergency fund of $1000 set aside for unexpected stuff.

How big is your house?
Our house is 2300 sq. feet.  We have four bedrooms.  The oldest has his own room, the 2 girls share (10 & 1) and the other 2 boys share (8 & 3).  We are blessed with a bigger-than-normal sized backyard for our area.  Our house is on a half acre, rather than the .25 acres most houses around here are built on.