My name is Jamie Miles. I have been married to my husband Matthew for almost 10 years and I have 4 beautiful boys. I am so lucky to be able to stay at home with my family, but it doesn’t come easily. To make ends meet, I started selling Vintage clothes on eBay about 4 years ago to supplement our income. It wasn’t enough. We had to go on food stamps and WIC, because we had no room in the budget for food. But despite our monthly stipend and extra income, we still ended up putting groceries on the credit card a couple times a month. We were digging ourselves in deeper and deeper. I started looking into part-time work, just hating that things were coming to this. That’s when I started hearing the buzz around the grocery about a coupon class.Here’s the thing. I am a thrifty person. I was raised to be a thrifty person. I take pride in being able to make do on very little. I consider it an art- the Art of Making-Do, and it is one of the few talents I have. Besides that- I am exceedingly cheap in a way that offends my husband’s generous nature to the core. All that to say: I didn’t think I needed anyone to tell me how to save money. When I heard about this new coupon class, I dismissed the idea at first. A 50¢ coupon seemed a sad reward for all the clipping and organizing and planning it takes to actually use them. Okay, yes, I will collect dryer lint and egg cartons and stuff old candle remnants in the cabinets for months just so I can make Boyscout campfire starters….. So maybe the coupon game was something this make-doer should look into after all. When I heard that there would be free child care (The Holy Grail of the stay-at-home-mom!) it sealed the deal- I signed up right away.I walked in about 10 minutes late, as usual. The room was packed with women of all ages. I slid into a seat at the end of a table and glanced down at the packet of papers in front of me. It correlated to the PowerPoint presentation being given at the front of the room- and it was…… Daunting. There were rules, lingo, several different store policies, organizing options – in short, ALOT of work! Then again, what worthwhile thing comes easily?I looked around at rows and rows of housewives who had their eyes glued to the instructors, hanging on their every word. An exciting atmosphere of subversion hung in the air- it felt as if we were being initiated into some sort of underground, anti-establishment movement. We were a veritable army of hunters and gatherers struggling to protect our families from uncertain times. We were a frugal sisterhood.I left that meeting with a thrilling sense of purpose. I called my mom, I called my friends, and I talked to my husband about it until his eyes glazed over. I dove into couponing headfirst and I’m not sure I’ve come up for air yet. Besides the occasional meat or produce purchases that I cannot wait on a sale to buy- I generally save 50-75% off every receipt nowadays. This shift in spending has allowed me to take our inadequate monthly food stipend and stretch it far enough to not only cover our grocery expenses without using the credit card, but I even have enough food stamps left over each month to pick up essentials for a single-mom friend of mine. If this seems like a loaves and fishes story, it’s because it is. God blessed what was meagre and it became more than enough. We are not out of the woods yet, we have a lot to learn about spending and discipline and a lot of debt to shed in the long years ahead. But what I took from that class back in February has been a huge blessing to my family in just helping us make it paycheck-to-paycheck. I’m thankful. I love that this movement is a serious thing- that there are tenets for success, efficiency guides for storage and usage, coupon “lingo”, and real need behind it. I love the thrill of finding an amazing deal! I love that even though it’s time consuming, it is of real value to the family budget. I might not be able to make my family recession-proof, but I’m confident that I can do my part to ease the strain.

WELCOME!!!
We are excited you have expressed interest in our company, Time 2 $ave and the world of couponing. We’ll start with a brief introduction. Time 2 $ave was started by Kasey Trenum and Kelly Thompson. We are two stay at home moms who started couponing out of financial necessity. Both of our families are involved in construction and with the housing bubble bursting, we needed to find a way to contribute to our household income and still be able to stay at home. We did some research and started with a few coupons. After seeing that we could make a difference by keeping more of our money through savings on our grocery bill, we dug in deeper. We spent many, many hours researching blogs, deals, coupons and store policies. As our knowledge increased, so did our savings. Currently, we save around 75% on our weekly purchases from what we used to spend. Then, interest came from fellow shoppers and store employees. Just as we had seen people in the news that could save hundreds, so had they. But they’d never seen it in person. People began stopping us in the store and asking us questions about our coupons or store deals. We were surprised when others began following us to our cars wanting to know how we’d accomplished so much with so little. Finally, requests started coming in from people wanting to go shopping with us or meet us during our strategy planning. While all this attention was a little embarrassing, we decided to humor them (and ourselves) by teaching our first couponing class. We’d hoped 25 people would come and were shocked when over 200 attended. We realized there was a much greater hunger for our information and people were looking for hope during a struggling economy. We spent time in prayer about what the next move should be and finally felt it was time to step out on faith…thus Time 2 $ave was born. Were we ready for what lay ahead? Only by the Lord leading us and directing us have we been able to move forward. He has opened many doors that were impossible to us. We have found favor and been humbled all at the same time. It is so exciting to hear the story of a first time coupon user who has saved twenty or thirty dollars on their grocery bill. We rejoice with them and feel our family has expanded. There continues to be many benefits that we did not anticipate, but are honored to be chosen to bring a message of hope…”for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).