There's so much talk about the current bad economy and it's certainly true that times are tough in comparison to what we've become accustomed to in recent decades, and yet I look at the pictures from Haiti and think how wonderfully blessed we are, and I want to reach right into the picture and bring those people into my home, feed them, love them, give them shelter and hope. There are ways I can do that figuratively and tangibly and that's good, but it's not enough. I need to use the compassion that I feel to put my own life into perspective and find new balance.Last night, my husband and I watched a 2008 movie called "Defiance" about a band of Jews who survived for years in the forest of Eastern Europe, evading the Nazis. The story is true. Professionals and intellectuals and working men and women - people accustomed to prosperity - left life as they knew it behind and scraped out a meager existence in the forest where they struggled to survive and many died.
So, what does the current situation in Haiti have to do with the story of those defiant Jews? They are stories of human suffering and endurance. They remind me of how blessed I am, of how little true suffering I have known. Both help me put my own life in perspective.
Before we went to bed, hubby and I made a pact. We agreed that we will not spend a cent this week, beyond the gas he needs to get to work and back, and it's not like I've got the kitchen cupboards stocked. Today would normally be my grocery shopping day.
By the end of the week our cupboards will be bare. I look forward to exercising the ingenuity I will need to feed my family without the fresh fruits, vegetables, and meat that I typically pick up every few days over the course of the week. I get to look forward to it because it's a CHOICE and not a necessity, so the exercise won't be real in that sense, but it will serve as a good reminder of the things we take for granted in life.
I'll write about it as we go along, let you know what we're eating and what I discover in the process of living a week without spending, and I challenge you to try it too. Instead of joining in the talk about how tough times are, let's count our blessings and do a little something to remind ourselves of how blessed we really are.
©JustKate,2010
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I discovered that I am. I have been fretting about how we will afford to buy hay for the horses, as our supplies are running low and our pasture is gone. Then I realized I don't NEED the horses. But, I said to myself, I can't afford to sell them because I'll lose money. Hm... The truth is that I may not be able to afford to keep them. We all have to take losses sometimes. There's no "crises" in this situation, it's just something I'd rather not do.
As my husband and I have been looking at the ways we need to tighten our belts, we've allowed ourselves to experience a certain measure of stress. Can we afford our home? That's an altogether different question from the one about horses, yes? Maybe not. We might lose a huge amount of money, all of our "savings," if we lost our home, BUT we would still be able to live at a standard that is unattainable to people in developing countries.
I have lived in a hut in the jungle. I have lived with no more possessions to my name than what will fit in a duffel bag, but it's been awhile and I've almost forgotten what it's like, how little we need to survive.
As for the "scarcity mindset," I don't see myself embracing that mindset at all. I'm saying that most of us already have more than we really need. We already have so much, why on earth would I want to reach for more, especially when others around our nation and the world are suffering?
I don't even see increased abundance as a worthy goal, right now. I think we're wayyyyyyyyy too fixated on abundance, as a matter of fact.
My creative talent, right now, is going into how to use the food I have on hand. I had, for example, frozen a ham bone over the holidays because I didn't want our dogs to get into the trash cans. I figured I'd take it out and put it in the truck when we took our next load to the landfill. NOW, that ham bone is the base for tonight's dinner!!
It requires a great deal of creative talent to learn how to make do with less, my friend. I'm not interested in being "different," I'm simply interested in learning and growing and becoming a better and more balanced person and a better citizen of the world. This is one tiny way that I can do that.
Other endeavors have involved selling everything and moving to Papua New Guinea and adopting special needs kids. It all makes a difference.
My fixation??? hahaha on raising income rather than cutting costs comes from a family where the saving money seemed to be coming from a place of fear. With more resources you can still live in fear or perhaps have more choices. But putting too much time in making a living costs you your life. So I agree that a lot of our culture here is too much oriented on acquiring things rather than making a difference.
The truth is that we are blessed to have a lovely home, ponies, German Shepherds, trustworthy transportation, etc. but they are BLESSINGS not ENTITLEMENTS, and we could do without them. As I said, I have lived HAPPILY with nothing more than what could fit in a duffel bag. I cooked over a fire, washed pots and clothes downstream of where I got my drinking water, dug food from the earth (sweet potatoes mostly)... It's certainly not a lifestyle that most U.S. Citizens have lived, but it was a good one and I was happy.
How I ended up with this accumulation of things, I'm not sure. It's not such a big accumulation by U.S. standards. In fact, it's fairly modest, but it's a veritable BOUNTY by world standards and far more than what I NEED.
Anyway, it's only the early afternoon of day #1 of my challenge and I already feel more positive and more grateful. My daughter feels it too. She's got the ponies out, grazing in an adjacent field right now while she holds their leads, which will help us cut down on our hay consumption. It's not all that fun to stand out in the rain holding ponies and doing nothing else, but that's life. I think she's enjoying the challenge and knowledge that she's helping out. It's good for all of us!
JB, I gave myself an attitude adjustment too! Hopefully, it will continue to adjust in positive ways throughout the week! As for that thinking thing, it's what I do! ;)
I've never even fasted before, and I've been a Christian since 1973!
I guess I'll live vicariously through you, Kate! I will wait with anticipation on what you discover this week!
WHAT?!!!! A Christian who's never fasted? Surely you jest! ;)
I'm actually enjoying this. It was chilly in the house today (We're keeping it below 65 degrees), but I just bundled up. We didn't have any bread or yeast on hand so I made unleavened bread to go with the soup I made with a leftover frozen bone I'd intended to throw away (Didn't want to put it in the trash for fear the dogs or coyotes would get to it), and it was YUMMY! I know it's only day one but I can already see how we'll save tons of money doing this and it'll be great for our youngest daughter whom I homeschool.
Blah blah blah, yep, live vicariously through me. I'm totally into it!
C5
Hey, C, improvisation is where it's at, and that's fun for me. I'm dragging my family into challenge #2 when this is over - actually, I'm not dragging them, they're coming willingly. :) Hope you're enjoying swim season. I just realized that I haven't seen any pics this year!
I firmly believe that as Americans we are very very spoiled and fail to recognize that much of the time. We take so many things for granted that so many in other countries have no understanding of.
I think that is a great challenge. I have already been doing that for quite a while now. Being a single man with no kids it is easy for me to choose to do so, because I am not having to convince anyone else to not spend any money. Just myself.
In the past few years, I have gone much time barely spending anything except what goes toward bills.
I have adjusted to opening the house a lot and not using utilities as often. My body has acclimated to the point that I am comfortable with a much wider temperature range than when I kept the house at a consistent temperature.
I eat leftovers a lot. I can take just about anything out of the fridge or pantry and add it to some pasta and be real satisfied with my unique mish mash of a pasta dish. I can do the same thing, making just about anything into tacos if I have the tortillas.
I have literally gone days barely eating anything at all. I used to drink coffee every day. I ran out once, and didn't want to spend any money that week, so I did not buy any coffee. It has been several months since I have had coffee now.
Sometimes we have things in our life and we think we need them, but in reality if we didn't have them we would move on in life and realize we never needed it to begin with.
Love your challenge here and look forward to finding out how it went for you and your family. :)
Hey, Drew, so nice of you to come by and let me know you were here. :0)
I imagine you're right that it's easier for a single person to cease spending than a family, but it's also a fun family endeavor. We're looking at it as a challenge. We started on the day that would normally have been my grocery shopping day so we're already improvising. My daughter and I made flatbread last night and that's something we've never done before. We'll make it all week because we don't have any bread at all! :)
It takes hubby and I back to the days when we lived overseas and subsisted mostly on sweet potatoes, fruit, and greens from our bush garden.
We are fortunate to have the security of knowing that we COULD go spend if we needed to and that's a huge blessing. What we're doing probably wouldn't be very fun if we HAD to do it. Last night, my daughter and I were talking about how there have been times in history when people who had PLENTY were forced to do without, when their lives were radically changed by war. A perfect example is what happened in WWII. Our project has opened up some great opportunities to have substantive conversations with our daughter and it's a great homeschool project as well!
We have another goal coming at the end of this week that I'm truly excited about. I'm thankful that my hubby is willing to jump on board with me!
And, really, we did need to curtail our spending. We're facing some financial challenges due to the economy, as are most people, but it's not anything I want to "worry" about too much because I think we have the means to make things work if we just get creative! In fact, I know we do!
Ironically, I write mostly about personal finance. I scour the latest advice columns written by financial advisers and live on government sites to track the rate of bankruptcies filed and debt charged off. As someone who is 100 percent debt-free, it's been a real eye-opener.
Good luck!
Melissa
(Unwilling Raconteur)
That being said, my challenge is less about cutting back on spending and more about making do with less because it's good for the soul, because we've become accustomed to too much excess. I remember, back in the day, when I was living in the jungle and I vowed that I would not return to American consumerism. Despite my best intentions, it happened.
So, we're making our way back to a simpler life. I want to be able to use my excess to GIVE and not to accumulate. I guess I'm not much for the American dream of having MORE and MORE and MORE each generation.
That's my next blog. :0)
Again, it's great to see you, Mel.
As I read about you gong to toss the bone, my Grammy's influence screamed in my brain, "NO!!! Use it for soup, gravy flavor, pasta flavor, trim the bits off to add to a stuffing...."
I am looking forward to seeing more about your money free week.
=)
Seeing things like that in Haiti would break anyone's heart, that has one, for those that truly suffer! I remember seeing images of extremely poor families in the Appalachian Mountains. I saw one family heating their shack of a home with a 55 gallon drum. At the bottom of the drum was a rather large hole. They had some small potatoes stuck in there cooking for dinner. That was all the several children and their parents had to eat.
Reading the news of Haiti and remembering that report has sent my senses reeling.
I honor you and hubby with the challenge you two are taking. Please keep us updated to how well y'all are doing. I would be so interested in your progress.
Huge hugs to my amazing friend!!
~Calvin
Here's the "missing" comment! I thought it was attached to the following blog. :)
I wouldn't normally throw beef or turkey bones but the fact that it was ham made it seem less appealing. I haven't cooked much with it. You know me and meat. I'm not a huge fan. But I used it and it was good!
Calvin, Apparently, I missed a few comments! I'm glad I found this. :)
I, too, am moved by the suffering I have seen and regret that I have allowed myself to become as much of a consumer as I have. It's okay, every now and then we all need to make little adjustments as we chart our coarse through life!
Much love to you, my friend.
Keep up the great work.
Thank you for the encouragement and letting me know you were here. :)
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