I wasn't too concerned about saving money until we had our first daughter. The minute she was born, we became a one-income family. I am still reading books or searching the net for tips on saving money! Oh, I read a lot of the same tips over and over, but then I'll come across a new nugget of information that inspires me to keep trying to be a good steward of our money. Trust me, our family wastes money every month on things that are not needed. I am constantly working on remembering that I don't "need" much, even though I "want" everything and I need to temper that materialistic desire! Scroll down for more of my thoughts on wants vs. needs.
Here is a post from my blog - October 18, 2006 - discussing my materialism.
It all started last night when my husband was questioning how fast we can get our credit card paid off. Even though our insurance picked up some of the cost of our daughter's new hearing aids, we have the rest of it on the credit card plus a few other purchases from this month (I failed miserably at my attempt to NOT buy anything extraneous this month ... more on that later). We have this goal for 2007 to put away 3 months of net salary as a buffer, but having a credit card bill is going to put that goal out of reach for a while. I did some figuring today and we can have it paid off early January (3 payments). I told my dh that and he was ok with it. We were hoping to pay off my car by the end of this year, but the hearing aids were needed and the 3-month buffer is more important. We hope to have the buffer saved up by mid-2007. We will have a nice start due to a pension payout and then we'll add to it each month - as much as we can - until we hit our goal amount.
Well, all this talk of saving money got me to thinking about what is coming up for us in the next few years. We'll have children who can drive which means a 3rd car and the insurance that goes along with it. We also have college to think about. We are currently investing money in a 401K, but we are not investing as much as we would like. Not quite sure what to do about that, but that isn't our focus right now anyway. So, I emailed my real estate agent and asked her what we could get for our house if we sold it. She emailed me back a figure and, after doing the math of paying the realtor to help us sell and buy another house and paying off our current loan, we would only be left with about $20K ... not enough to consider downsizing and all of the headaches that would come with it. I was really serious about possibly moving into a smaller house with a smaller loan, and thereby a smaller monthly payment. However, my husband ix-nayed that idea once I did the math.
I'm currently reading two really interesting books - Not Buying It - My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine (NOTE: profanity in book) and Women in the Material World by Peter Menzel and Faith d'Aluisio. I have read several blogs/sites recently where people are trying to get back to more frugal ways or are working on their spending habits. I was supposed to have put a moratorium on our extraneous spending this month, but it didn't happen. Magazines, cookies, books, videos, stamping supplies, neato socks from Socklady.com (Christmas presents for my daughter and a few new color combos for me! I buy mine from Dahlem's Soapworks b/c they are cheaper, but you can see the color combos at the other link) - all of these items have made it into my home in the past 18 days. Did we need any of these items? Not at all (well, maybe the books - ha!). If I had to total the extra money we've spent, it's several hundred dollars - YIKES! How wasteful we have been ... why do our wants always seem like "needs?" Anyhoo, back on topic, the premise of Not Buying It is that the author will only buy necessities for an entire year. The question soon becomes - What is considered a necessity? For each person, that will mean different things! I'm not too far in the book yet, but my dh will be away for a few days on a business trip so I may just stay up late reading as I am very interested to see how it all turns out.
Women in the Material World is excellent! I had purchased the author's books, Material World and Hungry Planet last year and was very interested to own this book also. My daughter will be studying world geography next year and my son a few years after so I thought these books would put a human face on all of the facts we'll be noting. I am just fascinated by how so many societies do not place a value on materialism. They often can't because they are so poor. They don't own much - their homes are sparse, the clothing they own is comprised of a few outfits that they constantly wash and wear, they often don't have electricity and must grow all of the food they need to feed their - often large - families. The interesting thing is that the interviews, of the women featured in the book, that I have read so far lack an "oh, I'm so poor and I hate my life" attitude. These women are genuinely grateful for what they have and aren't worrying about what they don't have. Oh, sure, they all want better lives, but they know it will come in time. I've been sitting here tonight looking at the pictures of these families and the women who take care of them and just praising God that I live in the US and that my dh has a nice salary and that we don't have to work so hard for all that we do have. I am definitely blessed! However, why am I so often discontented because I don't have the money for things that I WANT to have in my home - whether that be clothing, more books, house decor, etc.? I have fought the feeling of contentment as long as I can remember and I try to remember this saying
The kids and I have also just begun reading about the Great Depression. My MIL lived through it so I am hoping she will be able to share some insight about this time period with the children. I have a cookbook called Stories and Recipes of the Great Depression of the 1930's by Rita Van Amber. I was reading some of the stories from people who lived through the Depression so that I could share some of it with the kids tomorrow during school. I also have a huge stack of books for us to read through over the next month or so. The resourcefulness of families during that decade is just amazing. They weren't content with their circumstances, but they made the most of what they had because they had no other choice. My family and I would be in dire straits if this happened to us. I mean, we don't have a means of growing our own food and we don't have animals to provide us with eggs, milk, etc. Honestly, I can't really put myself in their shoes as I have no frame of reference for what it would be like to live during the Depression!
I also had an interesting conversation with a friend today. Her family sold their house this summer and bought a larger house with 3 x's the square footage and for almost FOUR x's what they sold their house for!! (Side note: I didn't ask her for the amounts, but found the info on www.zillow.com). Now, they are a family of 6 and were living in a house smaller than ours, so I can't argue with buying a larger house, but I know for a fact that they could have found suitable housing for much less than they spent. Her comment to me today was, "It took all we had to buy this house - our savings, etc." I can't imagine what her house payment is. Now, I'm not judging her for buying a new house. I know which neighborhood she moved into and I would die to live in one of those homes! They are gorgeous and the neighborhood is lovely, too. However, why do we Americans always think that bigger is better and that WAY BIGGER is best?? I probably wouldn't have thought anything about this exchange with my friend if I wasn't already thinking about materialism, our own personal finances, the Great Depression and the plight of people living in other countries!!
So, now that I have taken some time to evaluate my own life circumstances - and I will continue to do this - my husband and I have decided that we are seriously going to focus on "not buying it" in 2007. Things that we want are going on a list and we have to wait a minimum of TWO months before we can think of buying those wants. By making us wait, we are not being ruled by impulse buying and we have time to seriously consider how to spend our "allowance money." I am also going to work at making the most of opportunities that arise that will save me money. For example, in my mail yesterday were two coupons to Bath & Body Works - spend $10, get a free item. My husband has two women he exchanges gifts with at Christmas time (they are like his grandmothers - LOL!) and I am going to take these cards and get them gifts worth $25 or so and I'll only be spending $20. Now, of course, I could use these cards to buy stuff for me (because I love B&BW!), but those coupons are better spent helping me buy some gifts this Christmas.
Well, if you have made it this far, I applaud you! ... this is probably the longest post I've ever had on one of my blogs (and it has taken me 1.5 hours to type it up). However, as we approach the gift-giving season, I just wanted to share the thoughts that are swirling around in my brain. We need to give ourselves permission to live simply and frugally and not worrying about "keeping up with the Jones's" ... I would personally like to keep living without major debt and with my eyes looking to God to provide all that HE knows that I need! I know there will be a lot of praying going on in this family next year as I help the children realize that all we have is from God and we don't always need everything that we think we do!"
It is my hope that you will find something useful here on my site!
I currently enjoy the privilege of being able to stay at home
to homeschool my children and I am always striving to be
the best caretaker for my precious family.
"I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me."
~ Philippians 4:13 ~
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