“I’m all about spending less, not saving more. There’s a difference between saving when you buy an item on sale and spending less to get what you actually need.”
Chase was born in Houston, Texas, but moved to San Antonio at the age of 5. A member of the Alamo Heights High School basketball team, she also was the feature’s editor of the school newspaper before graduating in 1996. Chase attended Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, where she earned a degree in biology while working in an emergency room as an EMT.
“I wanted to become a doctor, but after working in the emergency room, I decided to enter the field of teaching,” said Chase, who worked in a Christian high school in the Dominican Republic for six years after graduating from college. “I was a biology teacher, and later went back and earned a masters degree in education. We had Dominican students and American kids.”
Following her first year of teaching, Chase met her husband, Steve, a Bellbrook High School graduate who was teaching math at the Dominican school. The couple wed in 2002 and returned to Centerville after the birth of their first son, Ryan, who is now a kindergarten student.
“We moved here, because Steve is from this area,” said Chase, whose mother-in-law, Fran Chase, lives in Washington Twp. and works as a teacher at John Hole Elementary School. “Steve teaches adult computer classes at New Horizons in Fairborn.”
Meanwhile, Chase became a stay-at-home mom, but following the birth of two more sons, Charlie and Tyler, she began to cut costs wherever she could. Steve Chase even began a second job delivering pizzas in the evening.
“In 2008, with gas prices shooting up to over $4 a gallon I did everything I could to save money,” said Chase, who cancelled her cable television, found the lowest cell phone contract available and began writing her blog. “Within a month of starting my blog, I had 1,000 visitors a day. It meets a need for people. It’s helping people spend less at the grocery store while not sacrificing the quality of food they eat. For the most part we’re cooking from scratch.”
Two months into her blog, Chase began writing a cookbook, “The $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook,” at the urging of her sister. She then found a literary agent and had her cookbook published by St. Martin Press in 2009. Chase was already a celebrity on the web, but, with appearances on television programs like “The Rachel Ray Show” and “Good Morning America,” she has become a recognized face in households across the country. She continues to develop recipes, work on her blog and recently published a second cookbook, “The $5 Dinner Mom Breakfast and Lunch Cookbook.”
Contact this columnist at (937) 432-9054 or jjbaer@aol.com.
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