Happy With What We Don’t HAVE
This is a guest post from Amy who recently starting blogging at The Finer Things in Life.
“You’re so lucky that you get to stay home.”
I hear that all the time, and although I do feel very blessed to be at home raising my children (where on earth would I rather be?), I can’t stand that comment. I assume that they assume that I’m home because of the prolific money tree growing in the back yard.
There is no money tree. Trust me. I can’t even keep house plants alive.
I get to stay home because we have made some choices. We made these choices early and often and it’s a darn good thing. We are now able to live well on my husband’s tiny-Kansas-town teacher salary. Do you have any idea what teachers’ salaries are in the tiny towns of central Kansas?!?
Anyway, just because we are a few dollars away from qualifying for WIC services doesn’t mean that we don’t live well. And you know what? We also put nearly 15% of his income into savings last year. IT CAN BE DONE.
It’s all a matter of perspective. Of choice. We choose to be happy with what we have, and we are abundantly blessed for it.
Here are just a few things that we choose to be happy with.
1. Our vehicles. They’re older (’94 pickup and ’01 minivan), and they both have well over 100,000 miles on them but…
- They are paid for (we don’t do loans on anything except our 15 year mortgage).
- They are functional and safe.
- They are saving us money in the tags and taxes and insurance departments.
2. Our tv. It’s old (1996ish), it’s not digital, and we have only one channel. But…
- We have three small children. That’s FREE entertainment! Who needs another distraction?
- We can borrow videos from the library for our “tv fix.”
- We are able to watch that $600-1,000 that we could have spent on cable/satellite GROW in our mutual funds each year. (We have this thing about wanting to retire someday…)
3. Our tiny town. (Okay, so that’s not a thing that we own, just work with me on this.) We are 15 minutes from the nearest grocery store and an hour from “real” shopping and entertainment. But…
- I have learned to plan ahead. No quick trips to the store to satisfy a baking craving.
- Everything I want to do is within 4 walking blocks. We walk to the park, the swimming pool, the library and post office, and to our friends’ and families’ houses.
- Lance walks to work. Seriously, it is sometimes a full week before we get a vehicle out of the garage.
4. Our house. It’s not big (1,500 sq. feet, 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, unfinished partial basement) and it’s old (1916) and we’ve had and still need to do a lot of work on it, but…
- We purchased a lot of house (you should see our huge yard and garage) for relatively little money. (it’s a tiny-town thing)
- We fix it up as funds allow. (Remember, no loans.) We think it’s looking rather nice!
- One bathroom = less cleaning. I hate cleaning. (Check back with me in 12 years when I have 2 teenage girls and one bathroom…)
5. Our home furnishings. Nothing is new, and we’ve spent about $1,000 TOTAL on ALL of our furniture, but…
- We have truly beautiful furnishings (including antiques, we love antiques!) that were either given to us or purchased cheap from someone who was “upgrading.”
- We love the thrill of WAITING and finding something for very little money that others pay through the nose for. More money for the retirement fund!
- Why on earth would we want to spend oodles of money on nice furniture when we have small children living in our home?!?
I could go on and on, and I plan to… on my own very new blog, The Finer Things in Life. Please join me as I expand my thoughts about our finances and how we manage thrive happily in these consumer-driven, double income, materialistic times. We are so very happy with what we have!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us Amy. If you are interested in guest blogging for Happy to be at Home, please email us at 3Moms@happytobeathome.net.
AUTHOR | Toni
Toni, one of the original 3 Moms, is a military wife and stay-at-home(schooling) mom of six, soon to be seven great kids. On her personal blog, The Happy Housewife, she writes about saving money, healthy eating, recycling, homeschooling, life as a mom, and crafting.
We have a small home too. We finished our basement to include 2 bedrooms, familyroom & office/schoolroom. It is nice and cozy.
Same w/our vehicles.
We have 1 bathroom also but an extra toilet in the laundry room.
I get tired of that too. I feel like people think my parents help us out or something, cuz we live next to them. Let me just announce it to the world right now, THEY DON’T! They do try, but we are too proud, I guess. LOL And we have always qualified for WIC even when my dh was making the most of his entire working days! We have prolly even qualified for food stamps for years but only just got them when he was unemployed.
It CAN be done! I do get tired of people saying “I have to work” when I know what that really means, and they do not HAVE to work! I have HAD to work a few times. But since I make my main concern my home and family, I don’t work for extended periods. Just til we catch back up. And it is never long. We are fairly low maintenance
Ok, sorry. Rant over!!!
[...] Happy With What We HAVE Posted on August 1, 2008 by amysfinerthings Check out my very first guest post over at Happy to be at Home! [...]
Another kindred spirit. I too wrote a post similar to yours. It is work to stay-at-home. After all, if many people with two incomes are one step away from bankruptcy, how hard is it to thrive on one income!http://love2-bhome.blogspot.com/2008/05/lucky-or-blessed.html
I don’t envy you trying to share a bathroom with two girls! Growing up (I have only 1 sibling - a sister) the two of us would fight all the time. My mother was thankful for the sanctuary of her own bathroom.
HOWEVER she was never able to stay at home with us like she wanted.
When Mr. Right moves into his new house, we’re going to try and do without cable, but I’m not sure how well that will work.
I love this article! If we were staying in the states for much longer (we are working towards overseas mission work) your lifestyle is how I forsaw us living. What a positive take on your situation…thank you!
Hurray for you! You sound so much like me. Most young people today think that all the stuff is neccessary to happiness. Then they leave their sweet babies in the care of strangers to have stuff.
What a great post!
[...] Posted on August 21, 2008 by amysfinerthings In our quest to live below our means and be Happy With What We Have, we have given up several things that society says we need. You don’t have that? How do you [...]
I just wanted to tell you that I really loved this post - it hits at the heart of simple living.
Just discovered your site, great post!
I truly believe a smaller home makes for a better life. I clean enough as it is, and don’t wish to spend a significant portion of my life cleaning bathrooms.
We have made many of the same decisions you mention. When things seem difficult, sometimes I like to think of the house my father grew up in and how my grandmother used to do things.
[...] 11, 2008 by Amy I’m a pretty frugal person. We’ve taken lots of steps to live happily on less so that I can be home raising our children. We don’t do cable. We rarely eat out. We [...]
[...] Toni presents Happy with What We Don’t Have. [...]