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| My Crew-4 of the 5 Olivers! |
I was asked this question recently and wanted to share our answer with you for our newest followers. Brandi and I have been couponing for over a year now. We had talked about our love of doing it and as good friends do, we hung out a lot. But instead of going out to eat or for coffee (not that we don't love our Starbucks!) we would go shopping late at night after the kiddos were in bed and many times after church on Sundays. We would lug in our huge binders and tote bags (Brandi's all nice and neat, mine-um...not so much) and we would shop, talk, and usually go over the lesson or sermon of the night. We were (and still do) getting stopped by people all the time, inquiring about our massive binders, our buggy full of food, and at the checkout-claims of amazement and people begging us to teach them how to do what we were doing. After a few months of this and of helping out several friends from our neighborhoods and church, we decided that maybe God was trying to tell us something. That we had a gift and that we needed to help others.
So, we decided to give it a try. We started out with a bang, hosting many successive coupon classes and people asking us if we had a website. Brandi's talented husband set up the website and we begin to slowly blog. While we don't blog as much as the big sites, we do try to come up with interesting and not so "blogged" about deals, especially locally. We encourage everyone that comes to our classes to contact us if they need us for deal questions, prayer concerns, anything really...we want to really "be" there for our friends.
We really encourage everyone to use the blessings that you receive from couponing (and yes, there is really a lot of blessings to be had from couponing and saving money) to help others. You can bless others with your stockpile, donate to local charities, hospice, church food banks, and help out your family. You can take the money that you save or make from these deals and use it for the glory of God. Brandi and I both tithe out of our coupon class money, yard sale overage sales, ect. We use our stockpiles to make baskets up for neighbors, donate to the monthly projects at church, donate to local charity (my personal favorite is Greenhouse Ministries in Murfreesboro), and we let our family "shop" in our freebie closet!
Brandi is a stay at home mom of one who is super talented and busy...always helping out neighbors and running her side business MOMMY MAINTENANCE SERVICE, teaching Sunday School, Adult class at night, and helps with the Children's Ministry. I am a now working mom (that was a brief stay at home mom for the last 15 months until recently) who is an accountant, with three kiddos and a super talented hubby, who is always on the go. You can find me at the ballfield or at church most of my spare time. I serve on the Finance Committee at church and my husband is a Sunday School teacher and on several of our church committees.
So, there is a little bit about us...we hope to use our talents in whatever way is pleasing to God, be it a small crowd or a large crowd. We have been SOOOO blessed by the opportunities we have been given to meet some of you (planned and randomly (and sidenote, do you know how amazing and such a God thing it is to randomly meet someone who follows our page out in public???). We hope we continue to get to meet you all on a personal basis, talk with you on the phone, read emails, comments, and texts from you (yes, you can contact us anyway you see fit!). We hope you and whomever you have mentioned, recommended, and brought to us is fulfilled by our posts, excited about our deals, and as always feeling the love and prayers that we have for all of you!
God bless all of you!
Jen <3
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