This is the first in a series of posts I hope to continue indefinitely about frugal living. It will contain my thoughts and observations as well as frugal tips.
I am becoming increasingly passionate about this subject because it encompasses more than just saving money. I believe at the heart of frugal living is the purpose and great privilege God has ordained for us as wives and mothers.
It seems to me that the value of the “housewife” has been greatly diminished in the aftermath of the Feminist Revolution. So much so that the term “housewife” itself seems to be derogatory. Unfortunately for my parent’s generation and even more so for mine, the outcome of these feminist ideologies is the deterioration of the family and the character of the women being brought up in today’s society. Not to mention the practical attributes which women today are left without, such as cooking, sewing, and the ability to manage a household.
Despite these facts, I have seen a resurgence among women of my generation to regain those lost attributes. For me this has meant learning those practical skills that I missed out on in my youth. It has also meant a great deal of “rewiring” in my mind as God has shown me what my calling is as a woman. How different it is from what the world is teaching our young girls today!
Obviously, one of the ways to live more frugally is to cut back on unnecessary expenses. I won’t go into what we have been doing right now, but I do want to discuss where my motivation to cut back originally started. For many people, especially the past couple of years, it has come from necessity. Likewise, for us. When my husband lost his job, it was definitely imperative that we make changes in our lifestyle. However, unlike so many others we know, it wasn’t from a lack of money. For the first time in our marriage, when tragedy struck, we actually had enough money to get by for awhile. Granted, it wasn’t a great deal of money, but it was enough that panic didn’t set in when my husband came home one day without a job. Nonetheless, we still had bills to pay and would soon need a source of income.
It was actually the prospect of not having money that really motivated us to take a look at our lives and how we were spending our hard earned resources. We know from many of our friends experiences with job losses that this isn’t the case for so many. When the pay check stops coming in, everything else stops too. Many have made a habit of living from paycheck to paycheck and buying the rest on credit. Scott and I had been there in the past. We knew what it was like to look at the stack of bills we couldn’t pay, to eat out and put the bill on a credit card, to open the refrigerator and find it empty and all of a sudden our comfortable lives were interrupted and we found ourselves detoured to a road that might lead back to those unpleasant times.
Thankfully, Scott and I had realized a couple of years earlier that our financial decisions were causing us unnecessary stress and strain. We set out on a mission to become debt-free. We hadn’t reached that goal, when Scott lost his job. We still haven’t reached it, but at least we were on our way. We had managed to reduce our debt significantly so that our bills were minimal, and had established an emergency savings. When disaster struck, we were quickly able to determine what our priorities were and take the necessary steps to avoid any financial peril. Those steps weren’t easy. It meant selling our beautiful home that Scott had built only two years earlier and moving into a shabby little rent house. It meant that Scott had to drive a beat up Ford Ranger instead of his new Ford F150. It meant making sacrifices and giving up some of the luxuries that we were accustomed to. It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary if we were going to stay on track with our goals and keep our priorities in line with our values. A year later, we are still in the shabby little rent house. Scott has upgraded from his beat up Ford Ranger to a beat up Ford F150 and we are still on track to be debt-free in the near future. Oh yeah, and we are happier than we have ever been.
Bottom line: “No false pride, or foolish ambition to appear as well as others, should ever induce a person to live one cent beyond the income of which he is certain.” The American Frugal Housewife by Maria Child
And, its not just about us. We have two daughters who will one day be managers of their own homes. God willing, they will leave our house to join their husbands armed with the confidence and knowledge to answer the noble call God has given to all women. What a joy and privilege it is to be the one who gets to teach them what that call entails and how to manage it. The only way I can live up to such a challenge is to continue to grow in knowledge myself. I by no means have it figured out. I hate coupons, I LOVE eating out, I hate watching every penny, I LOVE spending all the pennies :). I am on my way though and my daughters will hopefully be further down the road than me. What a legacy!
No comments:
Post a Comment