About~

Jen

 
Featured on TLC’s Extreme Couponing Season 1 Finale from Las Vegas

From Jen:  When my husband and I moved overseas to Japan during the 90′s with the military, I was stunned at the prices we paid for food on base. I learned to coupon & refund while living there. From contacts with the Refunding Makes Cents magazine I became acquainted with people that sent me expired coupons. The military can use expired coupons overseas 6 months past the expiration date. I would distribute the coupons to different facilities on base when a package came in. When we moved back to the states prices seemed so cheap to me that I fell out of couponing.

Now fast forward a few years and I was blessed with the best coupon EVER~one pregnancy 2 babies! Best BOGO I ever received was when I found out I was pregnant with twins! And it’s been a ride ever since. I became a work at home mom until they were two and realized I couldn’t keep that up. So, when I officially quit working and our economy began to falter it sparked a renewed interest for me to become frugal, again. I love the challenge of saving money and finding great deals that benefit my family’s bottom line and fill our stomachs with yummy healthy food. I started stockpiling health, beauty aids & paper goods 2 years ago, then realized I needed to do the same for groceries since prices have begun to skyrocket.

I recently took on the challenge of home schooling my bundles of energy. I will share information that I find compelling and free resources when I come across them. These resources can be used along with any schooling program: public, private or homeschool. Some of these resources will be a great thing to pull out when you hear the words “I’m bored” I have a great respect for parents and value the different choices we make for our families and our children’s schooling.

So between couponing, blogging, cooking from scratch, homeschooling the twins AND still enjoying being my handsome husband’s girlfriend after 21 years~life is busy and fulfilling! It is from years of teaching myself couponing that Tip Resource came about.  I want to share all that I learned with others and help them achieve extreme savings!

Shannon

Also Featured on TLC’s Extreme Couponing (remember the delivery of coupons to my door? Yup, that was Shannon!)

From Jen: I was blessed enough to meet Shannon in 2010.  A friend invited me to a coupon class, since she knew how much I loved couponing and Shannon was the instructor.  Shannon’s been my Las Vegas coupon companion ever since!  It’s so much fun to have someone to run ideas and shopping scenarios past; I am no longer a lone ranger in the Las Vegas coupon world.  So, when TLC contacted me about being on Extreme Couponing I sent an SOS out to Shannon.  She is the only other person who knew any inside info on the show!   Did you see her on the show?  She’s there!  Shannon is a wealth of information and has graciously agreed to pass along her expertise by contributing to Tip Resource!
~Thank you for all your help!

 From Shannon:  I am a stay at home and have been married to my fabulous husband Ken for 8 years and we have two daughters Kailey 5 and Madison 3.5. My husband is self-employed and when my first daughter was born in 2006, I had a job which I did quite a bit of traveling. When my daughter turned 1, financially we were in a position where I could quit my job (yeah!) and be a stay at home mom. I was very excited! At the end of that year in 2007 my second daughter was born and that’s when the economy started taking a turn. We absolutely had to figure out a way to make ends meet. At the time we were spending $1000/month on food, personal and household items. Through lots of trial and error of trying to cut down our monthly grocery budget, I was introduced to couponing by a neighbor and got HOOKED! I was taught a clipless coupon system that uses a free coupon matching website and it has saved me countless hours and hundreds of dollars! I now spend $300/month on the same items I used to spend $1000 on and the quality of my products has gone up!!  In my spare time (ha, ha!) I do graphic design for our church, maintain my husband’s business, teach free Grocery Smarts classes and love to look for bargains!

Jen Morris

From Jen Freeman: I want to introduce you to Jen Morris, AKA comic relief.  It’s been SO much fun getting to know Jen on our out of town trips teaching Extreme Couponing workshops in NoCal ~fun is always at hand.  She has a wealth of knowledge in couponing and so many other areas, not to mention she is my kindred spirit in the kitchen!  I think you will enjoy her fun posts and the fabulous ideas she has. We are blessed to have her here and sharing.  Shannon, Jen and I are the 3 Muskateers of Couponing! ~ I really appreciate you Jen!

From Jen Morris:  Hi there!! My name is Jen Morris. I am a wife to Joe, mother to 5 children, Jillian (10), Jakob (8), Jarrett (5), Jocelynn (3), and Jaxson (1.5), and I’m the Grocery Geek! My coupon journey began almost 3 years ago now when I was invited to go to a coupon class at my friend’s home. I was intrigued because we were desperate to figure out how to save money in that area of our budget. At the time, we spent right around $1100 a month for a family of 6 on all our household and grocery items. I thought that was good!! At the class I learned a few key things that changed my life and cut our budget down to around $450 a month for a now family of 7! THAT is good!! With only 2 months of couponing under my belt, I decided I needed to teach others what I had learned as well. Coupons changed my life and I just HAD to tell people about it! I got trained as an instructor pretty quickly and have been teaching classes ever since. In early 2010 I took over as a manager for Grocery Smarts and could then train other instructors as well to spread the news about coupons! Aside from motherhood, this has been the most rewarding job I have ever had!

Now, my life is better because of coupons, but my life doesn’t revolve around coupons either. I am very active in my church, I love to be involved in my kids’ school, I like digital scrapbooking, and oh boy, do I love a good trip to Home Depot! Once upon a time, I was an accountant, customer service agent, and did some American Sign Language on the side. If you do a little Google digging, you may see my name in conjunction with the Saints Unified Voices choir directed by the legendary Gladys Knight. I sang and toured with this group for about 9 years and may have scooped up a little Grammy along the way.  But, life happens, and with the arrival of baby #5 decided to retire my choir robes. If you drive close enough to my car though, you may catch me singing along to the radio (rather loudly), but that’s about all the performing I do these days.

You will find me poking my head on this site from time to time, so I thought you should know a little about me. So, hello, nice to meet you, and I can’t wait to hear of your saving successes!!