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A while back we had some guests at our home and the looks on their faces spoke volumes. Our home was not at all what they expected. In fact our home is extremely modest and borderlines on looking like we are poor and I don't not mean that in a derrogatory manner. The fact of the matter is we choose to live very much beneath our means.
Let me use our home as an example. I purchased our home based on my salary alone. I don't have a college degree and I'm a Legal Assistant so you can pretty much figure where my salary is. I went to the bank to see how much I could be approved for and it was $65,000.00. That was fine with me. I bought a row home for $52,000.00 with a sizable amount of land so that we could add on to the house if we wanted to. My husband and I discussed this at length and as he was neverous about buying the home himself (big venture for anyone), I choose to do it on my own based on my salary alone. Now with that said, my husband makes more than I do so with our combined incomes, we could have easily afford a $150,000.00 home or more. We made the choice not to go that route. The reasons.....simple, we didn't need that big of a home and I didn't want a $1,000/month house note. I thought about the "what ifs". What if we purchased one of those nice bigger homes and something happened to my husband and he could no longer work or vice versa. The goal was to make certain that if something happened, we could live off of one of our salaries without being strapped.
If you come in our home you will see a mish mash of furniture that doesn't match and I could care less. Now don't get me wrong, I've seen the raised eyebrows and the shocked looked on people's faces and the surprised looks. I've even had people say, this is not at all what I expected. Then I've seen the subtle change in the way people look at my husband and myself when they realize we are just good ole simple folk, so to speak :)
The point I'm making here is that living a simple life wouldn't get you any prizes in the Martha Stewart Home of the Year competition, but to me, living a simple content life is not about the "possessions" that I own. It's how I live the life I have been given. You don't have to fill your home with riches and keep up with the Jones or the Smiths or the whomevers to be happy and content.
The fact is that making the decision to live the simple life takes away all of those pressures of keeping up with anyone. Somewhere along the way, I believe, we have gotten away from the things that are important such as being happy and making beautiful wonderful memories. There was a time when we taught our daughters how to crochet or knit or sew. Those things lead to home made quilts and afghans and clothes. Things you need in life. Fathers taught their sons to hunt and fish and be the never ending boy scout......always prepared. Those things lead to food and always being knowing what to do in any situation. Stop and take a look around and see how many kids don't know how to cook or do a load of laundry or balance a check book. We have gotten away from the important things in life by trying to pack too much into it and feeling like "we owe" everyone everything.
When I was growing up the families where I lived were all the same. We all went to the same school and belonged to the same church. Everyone looked forward to Friday evening to the kickball game held at my parent's home and the neighbor's home. Everyone rushed home, ate dinner and head to our homes for the Friday evening kickball game. It was great fun! Cookouts among the neighbor families was the weekend ritual during the warm weather and everyone checked on each other during the colder months.
If your neighbors home needed painting, everyone chipped in to help and someone held a bar-b-que when it was all over with. Kids clothes and hand me downs were passed around the block until they could no longer be worn by anyone. If someone one on the block had a family member become ill, the rest of the families took turns making meals and helping clean the house until the person was back on their feet. Does this happen in your neighborhood? Do you even know your neighbors?
I deal with a lot of people in my life in the legal field and in the military field and I hear stories that sadden me greatly. But more often than not, I find the result of a lot of people's financial distress is they are living beyond their means. You can clip coupons all day long and shop here, there and yonder, but until you take a hard look at how you are living, what you will save using those coupons will be minimal to what you could save if you take a "heart inventory" of how you are living and what you may possibly be teaching your children.
With that said, I will continue on with this blog as I enjoy doing it, but you will find more posts on here in the future about how to live a simple life in lieu of just coupons. So, with that said, if you are just looking for a site that will tell you where the best grocery deals are and what coupons to use, there are probably plenty of sites out there much better for you than mine. The fact is, I could probably suggest a few for you. However, if you want to get back to a happy, stress free simple life, then I hope that you will stick around and maybe learn a thing or two.
Thank you for allowing me to say what I have been wanting to say for a while. I hope that I haven't offened anyone, but I have to say that for me, living a simplier life and not worrying about what everyone else thinks is the much better way to go.
Before you toss this blog site away and thing I have lost all of my brain cells, ask yourself one question..........If your Supreme Being that you pray to (whomever it may be) were to knock on your door and come into your home at this very moment, would he see that your heart belongs to him or would he see that your heart belongs to the world?
Just saying....
With love,
Compensated Affiliate
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