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Thrifty Wife Happy Life

Helping women love what they wear on a budget

My first post… Living life on a budget

August 31, 2013 by Katie Haller

My inspiration for this blog comes from my love of fashion and my life of living on a budget. I live on a budget in every aspect of my life and I want to share how I have found ways to live a decent life with spending little money. From clothes shopping to grocery shopping to entertainment to vacations, I’ve found ways to save money.

I have always been a girly girl. I love makeup and doing my hair. I love to put together outfits. But I’m not one to overdo it. I’ll admit it right now that I’m no expert when it comes to fashion and beauty, but I do know how to put myself together. I’m always looking at new looks and finding ways that I can recreate it with my low budget.
I just mentioned that I’m no fashion expert, so why should you read my blog? Well here is my story… I really can’t take full credit for this thrifty life I live without talking about my husband. He is amazing with finances and has taught me so much about the importance of saving and staying debt-free.
When I graduated college I had about $68,000 in student loan debt. I still to this day have no idea how I racked up all that debt. I started dating my husband towards the end of college. He asked me how I was paying for school and I told him I had “some loans” out. He didn’t realize at the time just how much money I had actually taken out. Later down the road, we knew we wanted to get married and he learned just how much money I owed. We made a plan that we would have the student loans paid off before our 30th birthdays. Here is the tricky part, we are both in low paying job fields. I am a preschool teacher at a childcare center and he is a first officer at a regional airline. Well, it didn’t come easy. We lived very cheaply off one income for a little over a year and a half. We put all the money from our wedding towards the loans and were able to sell the condo my husband had bought before we were married for a profit. We paid off the loans at age 28 a year in a half before we had planned. So now we have started from scratch in our savings and have done quite well in the past 5 months. I can’t take that much credit in the loans getting paid off so quickly. The only thing I did was to try my best not to spend money. It is a difficult task for someone who loves to shop. I’ve always been a smart shopper, but this has definitely been a challenge. Even though the loans are gone, we are still on a budget. I want to share with all of you that saving money is not as hard as you think it might be. It takes some discipline, but you can still live a very happy life on a small budget.

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Hi I'm Katie! Welcome to my blog! I am on a mission to help women build a wardrobe that they love without spending a lot of money doing it. I believe that everyone has the right to feel good in their outfit, no matter what your budget is! I am excited to have you here!
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thriftywifehappylife

Affordable everyday petite (5’1) mom style
A mix of affordable retailers + thrifted fashion
👨‍✈️Wife + Mom of 2 💙💗
💌 katie@thriftywifehappylife.com

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🛍️Comment DRESS and I will send you the shopping link to this post! 🔗https://liketk.it/5iYbp

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🛍️Comment VEST and I will send you the shopping link to this post! 🔗https://liketk.it/5iRSR

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Little did we know that “free hobby” would not only one day turn into my job, but it would also be a way to fund my shopping habit. Even helping me become a smarter shopper along the way! 😉

Fun fact: The name “Thrifty Wife, Happy Life” came from him. When making big decisions, Kevin always said “happy wife happy life”. So when I was brainstorming a name for my blog that popped into my head and I decided to do a little play on words. The original name I was going to pick was “Katie’s Closet”. I’m glad I went with the name I did!
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🛍️Comment DRESS and I will send you the shopping link to this post! 🔗https://liketk.it/5ircc

#amazonfashion #amazondress #founditonamazonfashion #howtowearit #howtostyle #amazonfinds
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🛍️Comment VACATION and I will send you the link to my blog post with all my cruise outfits! 🔗https://thriftywifehappylife.com/2025/07/what-i-wore-on-my-caribbean-cruise-family-vacation/

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