Hi, Welcome to Simple Living Mommy! My name is Jamie and I am so excited to share my journey with you! My goal in starting this blog was to encourage other moms to make the most with what they have while focusing on appreciating the small things. Simple Living Mommy is about living and raising babies on a budget, becoming more self-sufficient, and maintaining a healthy marriage through it all. My blog isn’t about being perfect or even striving for perfection – I’m way too realistic for that! Instead, let’s simplify and enjoy life right where we are!
I have a passion for the simple things in life. I really believe that by focusing on what’s most important and prioritizing a simple life that we can all find much more peace and happiness. After all, we only get to live this life once. Why not make it as enjoyable as possible?!
It is one of our family’s goals to get completely out of debt, so I will try to focus on that a lot here too. One thing I’ve noticed is that it’s easy to focus only on getting out of debt when you’re so gung-ho, but I want everyone to be able to take a step back and still enjoy the life they’re living while we’re on this debt-free journey. Life doesn’t have to stop completely when you’re paying off debt if you’re a little thrifty. There are tons of free activities to take part in and lots of ways to make life’s conveniences more affordable. Plus, traveling on a budget is possible! I’ll explore all of my secrets here.
My Story:
I met my husband Scotty at a Tim McGraw concert in 2011. It took some time, but he finally convinced me to be his girlfriend. We dated long distance for a while, while he was in Gulfport, MS for training for the Navy. It hasn’t always been easy, but we’ve consistently worked at our marriage – which turns out is hard work! We got married in July of 2014 and welcomed our first son to our family on January 6, 2015. It’s been quite a ride and I love our little family. One thing that I’m very open about is how important it is to be an active participant in your marriage. My husband and I work very hard at maintaining the love that we share and I hope to encourage anyone who finds their way to Simple Living Mommy to try to do the same thing. It’s so easy to get stuck in a rut in marriage and to take each other for granted. With some focus and determination, it’s easy to get that spark back!
I’m also very passionate about being a mommy. As soon as I delivered Nugget, I knew I wanted to have more babies. I had our second baby on June 11th, 2016 – another little boy that we affectionately refer to as Dumplin’. My husband and I both always wanted big families, and it looks like we’re well on our way!
I’m originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and a big part of my heart will always be there. While I’m from the north, I’ve always known I was meant to live in the south. It was my dream to move to a warmer climate and raise a big family.
That dream came true when my husband was offered a job in Durham, NC when our 1st baby was just 5 weeks old. At the time, we were living in an RV in my parent’s backyard, living paycheck to paycheck, and dreaming of owning a homestead of our own one day. Luckily for us, our motivation to make our dreams happen finally paid off and we’re now living on our small homestead in North Carolina.
I’m very passionate about maintaining good emotional health. I truly believe that’s the best gift that we can give to ourselves and our loved ones. Maintaining good self-esteem and awareness means you have so much more to give to those around you. My goal is to help my readers figure out how to balance crazy, hectic lives while still finding a way to allow simplicity to take over. Our lives are so full of errands, social obligations, and chores that it sometimes feels like life is just flying by. My hope is that we can all take a deep breath, take a look around, and enjoy our little ones while they’re little and our loved ones while they’re here. We never do know what tomorrow will bring and living a life free of regret is very important to me.
I hope our story can be an inspiration to those who want to learn to live a little more simply and purposefully, control debt without letting it control you, and to strive to be more frugal and self-sufficient. A couple of good places to start are How I Afford to be a Stay at Home Mom (on one small income) and my tips on recreating an awesome sex life after becoming parents!
I’d love to connect with you! Please subscribe to my updates and follow me on Pinterest and Facebook. I personally answer every reader e-mail. If you’d like chat, e-mail me at [email protected]. I look forward to hearing from you!