About the author
My name is Rachael Kornblum and I am mom in St. Louis, MO. I have been married 13 years and have four children: a nine-year-old boy and five-year-old triplet boys. I am in my mid-thirties and an Orthodox Jew. I have a B.A. degree in journalism and mass communications and a B.S. degree in early childhood education. I have taught third grade for a total of four years and two and three-year-olds for half a year. I was home with my triplets for three years and then went back to work full-time. I now teach kindergarten at a local public elementary school. I am a scrapbooking consultant and am working on my master’s degree in education. My interests include singing, writing, scrapbooking, crafts, and learning. My passions are using environmentally safe health and cleaning products, protecting our environment, and saving money.
I started this blog because I had been doing research on ways to save money. I seemed to always run into the same tips, many of which I had already tried. When our family grew from one child to four children so quickly we were faced with many more expenses. I felt like many of the tips out there were either common sense or applied more to people who needed to cut back for the first time. For example: don’t eat out as often, limit trips to the coffee shop, plan less dates with your spouse, buy store brands, use coupons, etc. These were no-brainers.
I wanted to find tips that really could help me save more money and would work for families who already knew how to cut back and scale down. Also, I found that so many recipes that said they were low-cost were not kosher. Sure you can get cheap non-kosher meat and cheese, but when you need kosher, both can be expensive. We eat vegetarian a lot, but cheese and soy can add up, too.
I had been keeping careful documentation of all the ways we were spending less and realized that I should put those records to a good use by sharing them with others.
I hope that you will find the tips I include to be helpful to you. They are things that we have done and saved a lot from and new ideas that I plan to use. The posts are not limited to one time or another. They can be helpful to you at any time, so check out my older posts! Please send me your feedback. I don’t want this to be another cookie-cutter budgeting or saving money site!
Shira Lev-Tzion
June 28, 2011 at 8:40 pm
Yeshar Koach, Rachel, for the useful information that you’re sharing with us!
Shira Lev-Tzion
rmk104
June 28, 2011 at 9:09 pm
You are so sweet. I figured it wasn’t doing anyone else any good if I had this list of tips but didn’t share them! I hope they are useful!
Rivki
September 6, 2011 at 8:41 pm
Rachel! So nice to find your blog! What a treat! I don’t know if you remember me from St. Louis – I was Rivki Russom back then, boarding with the Greenwalds.
rmk104
September 7, 2011 at 10:13 pm
Nice to get back in touch with you. I will have to send you an email. I will check out your blog, too. I hope you can use some of my tips! Congrats on your married life!
Amital
September 11, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Some good tips. I follow other “regular” coupon blogs, but it is nice to have a Jewish/kosher blog to follow, too!
rmk104
September 12, 2011 at 9:36 pm
Thanks for checking out mine, too. I am trying to provide advice that goes beyond just couponing and watching for deals. I hope my tips are helpful! Thanks for reading!
Lisa Robbins
December 22, 2011 at 2:38 pm
I am here, and looking forward to saving lots of kesef, thanks to you!
–Lisa
rmk104
December 22, 2011 at 2:45 pm
I hope you like it! I try to give global tips that will work no matter when you try them. Take a look at my older posts! I will have to check out yours, too. Send me an email with the link!
frugal food shopper
March 9, 2012 at 1:20 am
I am so glad I found your blog- you have some great ideas and I hope I can share them with my readers.
rmk104
March 9, 2012 at 3:13 pm
Thanks so much for reading my blog and subscribing. I will have to check out yours, too. I didn’t even know they had coupons in Israel! Hope you had a great Purim!
diggingher
April 19, 2012 at 6:22 pm
Sounds like you are a busy lady! I have great admiration for moms of multiples, I could only handle one at a time! I used coupons all the time when my family was young but now I find it more time consuming than cost saving. It’s a trade off though. Glad to have discovered your blog. I am sure we will exchange ideas.
rmk104
April 20, 2012 at 9:30 am
I think having young children definitely helps coupons be more worth it, because you are feeding more mouths! I am looking forward to reading your posts, too!
Julie Hansen Intuitive
April 23, 2012 at 2:29 pm
Thank you for liking my post. Great blog and I look forward to following your upcoming posts. Best wishes!
rmk104
April 27, 2012 at 2:20 pm
Thank you!
Alice Brown
May 7, 2012 at 1:39 pm
Rachael–This is a great blog! I really enjoyed reading it and look forward to getting it again in my email. All the best to you and your entire family!
Alice J.
rmk104
May 7, 2012 at 6:03 pm
Thank you so much. Glad you like it! I don’t think your subscription went through, though. I did not get a message and it didn’t show up on my WordPress account. Try again to enter your email address from my homepage where it says you can sign up to subscribe. Hope you are feeling well!
Empowered Results
June 9, 2012 at 3:29 pm
Hi Rachel! I came across you when visiting another blog. Looking forward to reading more of entries. Do you know about http://smartcookies.com ? Take care!
rmk104
June 10, 2012 at 1:22 pm
Thanks for checking out my blog! I appreciate it. Thanks for subscribing, too! I took a look at yours, too. I look forward to seeing what else you post about. The site you recommended looks really good. I will have to spend some more time browsing there. Have a great day!
Empowered Results
June 10, 2012 at 3:10 pm
You’re welcome! Ditto on the great day!
Jane Serling
June 22, 2012 at 4:12 pm
Rachel, I am just checking out your website. How wonderful. It was fun to hear all of your news recently. Your boys look terrific. I would love to email you but don’t have your email. All is well here. Jane Serling
FrugalFrumFashion
October 17, 2012 at 1:16 am
Hi! I love your blog–just discovered it! I’m also afrum mother who loves saving money, and I started my own blog, frugalfrumfashion.blogspot.com. Can you let me know what you think & help me spread the word? I’d love tips from an experienced frum mom blogger like yourself.
rmk104
December 27, 2012 at 11:07 pm
I am not so experienced, but thank you. Two great resources I have found are the wordpress posts you get from using WordPress as your platform and the blog “Blogging your passion.” I think that is the name. Check them out for some great tips. You can also email me or send me messages anytime. I am on facebook, too! I hope to take a look at your blog soon. I am just getting back to my site after a bit of a haitus!