Frugal Five Meet Melissa from Arizona

Melissa   is a wife, mom   of one and works at home living in Arizona. 

What is your financial life?
I am married  for 2 years  with a one year old girl. I stay home full time but also work at home doing call center work. My husband is a painting contractor right now and picks up odd jobs.  We have a bit of credit card  debt that we are trying to pay off with some really high interest rates. My work at home job is primarily to pay off the credit cards 

What is your budget buster?

The credit card debt is hurting us-we have over 15k of debt that I am trying to pay off. I am trying to use Dave Rasmey baby steps. We have 1k as our baby emergency fund and are currently on step 2 right now.

What is your favorite money saving tip?

My   most important money saving strategy is to buy secondhand. When I  need something, first I check to see if we can get it secondhand, and if we can't, then we get it new. I shop at a large consignment  store and also at several thrift stores. In my opinion, privately owned stores tend to be too expensive on many items, charging almost as much for used things as they would be new on sale. I get almost all of our clothes used, the only thing I won't buy used is underwear or socks .  My daughter has brand names at really good prices and I hope to be able to “sell them them back.

If you had an extra $1000 what would you do with it?

I would take $1000 and put it towards the credit card debt. I have one debt that I can completely wipe out.

What is your best resource for frugal living? 
When I decided to quit my job to stay home with my daughter   I started searching the internet for tips and websites like thefrugalmom.net and savingadvice.com  were a big help to me.