I have been a single parent now for 9 1/2 years. My kids are now teenagers, and we have been living the 'frugal lifestyle'. When we first began our journey, we have had lots and lots of criticism and were branded as, 'the poor folk', especially from my family and from the whole community. 
My ex-husband left me with a ton of debt, and it was really sink or swim. He really cleaned me out, so to speak, and we were completely left with nothing.
I have been making my own washing liquid, cleaners. We shop at op shops. The other day, I saw that they were selling cup cakes for $3.00 each. I said to my daughter, 'we must go home and make those'.
In the last 10 years, the frugal lifestyle that we now lead, has paid off two mortgages, a new car, paid off $10,000 off the bankcard debt, painted and renovated the house. We now own 3 horses, and my teenagers go to a private school, and I am a single parent!
The irony about this story is, that some of those people who have criticised me, surprisingly, now live the frugal lifestyle.
Cheers
By Michele from Mullumbimby, Australia
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I admire you so much. Thank you for your post, and good on you.
Outstanding story. That is the real American way. Thank you so much for the inspiration.
Well, more power to you! But at the risk of sounding like a doubter, I would say that regardless of cutting corners every possible way one can, one would still have to be bringing in a substantial income pretty regularly in order to pay off 2 mortgages, $10,000 of credit card debt, a new car, home renovations, private school tuition for multiple kids, and the cost of maintaining three horses! You must have a great job!
I was raised in a family with a very modest income (my father was a disabled veteran), and despite being as thrifty as was humanly possible, my parents could never have come close to gathering enough "spare" money in just 10 years to pay for everything you have paid for.
I'm in the US and I see you live in Australia... maybe the cost of living is very different between the two countries?
I love to hear comeback stories, but am I to assume that you did all that by selling cupcakes? Or did you go home and make cupcakes rather than buying the expensive $3.00 ones? I am not sure what the lesson is here?
To the person from Australia, I doubt that you could do all of that in ten years time, especially when your income is from making and selling cup-cakes !I lived as a single parent and raised four girls, so know what the expenses really are !My income came from a family business too, and a monthly social security, I would of loved to give my deserving children more, but there was just no way, no matter how frugal we lived, at one time we had a rule,"don't buy anything you can't eat"And it was really tough, a good life but a tough one!
This was really inspirational! I have student loan debt and I'm always worried that I might not have enough, but this gives me hope.
To the other readers, she was talking about making cupcakes for her kids, not selling them.
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