Meet a Reader | LeighAnne from the Mid-Atlantic

Today we’re meeting a reader who hails from my own neck of the woods! She owned a bakery before her second marriage and oh wow, you will be hungry after looking at the pictures of her breads.

Here’s LeighAnne!

1. Tell us a little about yourself

I’m a 43-year-old wife and mother living in the mid-Atlantic. I had my first three children when I was very young, then when the last left for college, I got remarried and had two more!

My husband is a teacher and also an officer in the National Guard. He’s currently serving our country overseas.

Before becoming a full-time mom again, I owned and operated a bakery for 13 years. I still make every baked good we eat, but am glad to not have to do it on a large scale anymore!

Like Kristen, my husband and I did not want to be divorced from our first spouses, but good can come out of bad situations and we’re so happy to have found each other, and to be parents again.

In our marriage, I realize my husband and I are frugal in different ways. He and I save and splurge in opposite areas: he would like to save by buying frozen vegetables over fresh, but is willing to splurge on occasionally eating out and on streaming services.

I’m not interested in entertainment but cooking is my hobby so I want fresh brussel sprouts, not frozen!

2. How long have you been reading The Frugal Girl?

I don’t remember how I came upon the blog itself, but I think the first post I read was the one where Kristen disclosed her separation.

She wrote about it so well that I started reading older posts, and am now hooked! I love a good blog.

3. How did you get interested in saving money?

I’ve always been more of a saver than a spender. I’m more of an anxious type, so having adequate savings means I don’t have to be anxious about how to pay for an unexpected expense.

4. What’s the “why” behind your money-saving efforts?

My husband and I like to be generous with our church and the charities we support, as well as help our older children out as they enter adulthood.

It is important to us to have me at home to care for our little children, so being careful with money makes living on a teacher’s salary possible.

5. What’s your best frugal win?

When I had my bakery, we participated in outdoor farmers’ markets. We wouldn’t carry anything over from one market to the next, so at the end of the day, it was effectively worthless.

I’d ask other vendors what they wanted to get rid of, and we traded with each other: produce, flowers, meat, cheese, and more! Everyone benefited and it was wonderful.

A recent win happened when we stopped at our butcher to order meat. As we stood in line, I kept reading and rereading a sign they had to make sure I was reading it right: they were selling locally raised, whole chickens for $2 a chicken!

We only had freezer space for two dozen chickens, else we would have gotten more!

6. What’s an embarrassing money mistake you’ve made?

When we bought our first house, so many things had to be ripped out and replaced that we ended up with $15,000 in credit card debt!

It was rice and beans for the next year but I got it entirely paid off and have never had credit card debt again.

7. What’s one thing you splurge on?

One of my oldest passed from cancer as a child, so I’m more aware of the need to be cautious of what we put in/on our bodies now. I buy more organic produce, flour and meat (though I buy half a hog or a beef at a time, so the price isn’t *too* bad), and am incorporating more sunscreens/soaps/etc that are safe.

This also feels like a splurge to me, as I grew up with a father who could build or fix anything: we paid people to work on our house!

My husband bought our 1960s brick ranch before I knew him, and everything was still original in the house, down to the drapes. We have replaced everything in our house, only doing a tiny portion of the work ourselves.

8. What’s one thing you aren’t remotely tempted to splurge on?

Eating out!

I make better food at home and it’s less expensive. If we’re traveling, I will seek out a good bakery, though.

I also have no interest in manicures/ most beauty products/ expensive accessories.

9. If $1000 was dropped into your lap today, what would you do with it?

I’d give it to our local crisis pregnancy center.

10. What’s the easiest/hardest part of being frugal?

For me, the hardest part is contentment.

I love making our home a beautiful and inviting place, and it seems there’s always something that could be updated, make overnight guests more comfortable, help the kitchen become more efficient… I try to ask myself whether or not what we have is enough (it often is), and to remind myself that my Christian faith tells me that this life is not all there is.

The easiest part is that I don’t have flashy taste, so expensive clothes or jewelry/new cars/etc aren’t appealing to me, and my hobbies either aren’t expensive (embroidery) or are useful (cooking, baking).

11. What frugal tips have you tried and abandoned?

I’m all about drying our laundry in the dryer! I don’t like how time-consuming it is to hang clothes on a line, plus as a long-haired person, I much prefer the dryer to catch any stray hairs than to find them on my clothing later.

(Note from Kristen: ME TOO. I wrote a post about why I stopped line-drying.)

12. What single action or decision has saved you the most money over your life?

Before we got married, I had my house on a 15-year mortgage.

It was not easy on the budget, but the payoff came when we got married and I sold it: I made enough from the sale (by $200!) to pay off the house we’re living in now.

It’s not my dream house, but it’s a good solid house and ours entirely!

We’re saving so much by not needing to pay any interest.

13. What is something you wish more people knew?

This might qualify as the most bizarre answer to this question, but it’s what’s popped into my mind and hopefully, it will be a help to someone.

There are Trappist monks in Dubuque, Iowa who support their monastery by making wooden caskets. Not only are they more beautiful than what is traditionally sold, but relevant to this blog they are much less expensive as well.

They also do not charge for caskets made for children, whether or not a child-size casket is needed (my son was old enough that he needed an adult-size one); they only ask the family to pay for the shipping.

It was hugely comforting to me that we buried my son’s precious body in something beautiful that had been made in love and with prayer, rather than something that had been made in a factory by a big corporation.

14. Did you ever receive any financial education in school or from your parents?

I don’t think my parents were especially good at frugality, but one thing I did pick up from my dad was that it is less expensive in the long run to repair an older vehicle than it is to buy a new one.

I have never owned a new vehicle, and have usually gotten at least 200,000 miles out of my vehicles with regular maintenance.

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LeighAnne…WHOA. Those baked goods look so, so amazing. They made me hungry!

I’m so sorry to hear of the loss of your son, but I also love the story of the monks who make beautiful caskets.

Also, your story of a happy second marriage made my heart so thrilled for you. Yay! As someone earlier on in the process of divorce, I find other people’s happy ending stories to be really encouraging.

Questions: how did you come to start a bakery? Had you always known how to bake? Did you start the bakery yourself or did you buy it from someone else?

Readers, the floor is yours!