If you wish to be rich, lower your standards and you'll become rich overnight.'
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Posted on 08/19/2003 10:33:27 AM PDT by new cruelty
I'm sorry to hear this. I hope things work out for you. Maybe someone on freerepublic, who lives in your area, might have some leads on a job or work. Good luck!
Hello, there are some of us living a frugal lifestyle not only because we don't approve of excess but also for something as simple as it's an accepted result from the priorities we've made. Living within a strict budget is a whole lot easier when one makes it into a game.
Well good for you. I did that for years. I still do it.
Yes, it is very possible to clothe a child for <$30 and send them to school just as well dressed as the wealthier crowd. Ya know, window shopping is very rewarding and super fun to the kids when they see their latest garage sale outfit at a boutique for $$$, lol. We don't know what her lot's size is but mine is only 60' wide which is plenty for a garden that produces enough to help suppliment the food bill throughout the year by freezing (requires a freezer), home canning (a one time $15 investment for garage sale canner/pressure cooker and jars, and $3 new lids), and dehydrating ($10 garage sale dehydrator or homemade for free). Most cities, and being in TX myself, I'm fairly sure her codes allow for a few chickens for meat and eggs.
When my oldest girls were little, I sewed most of their clothes. My folks helped out with the shoes and the underthings. Thrift stores were a mainstay, except for my ex, who had to look presentable. Here's a hint....make sure you go to yard sales on the other side of town. Don't buy anything for your kids that looks hand made. Nevermind why : (
Home canning is uneconomical, and potentially dangerous. I tried growing vegetables in a climate just as hostile as Texas. All that grew were tough as nails zuchinni, and bugs that I never knew existed. I stock up my freezer with day old bread and half price meat. I buy dented canned items. I use coupons. My utility bills eat up my savings. The harder I try, the more things go wrong. More people here can identify with that statement than yours.
Nope, that woman doesn't have the first clue. My folks went through the depression. I was their only child...after they gave up because of their ages :) They saved EVERYTHING. It got to be ridiculous. My dad taught me how to be a cheapskate at the grocery store, my mom taught me to sew. I taught myself to crochet gifts for the holidays. My parents were a team, however. That was not the case in my situation.
She may not have the gas money for garage sailing. Standing still with a coffee can is cheaper and expends much less energy. Where the heck does everyone get that figure of 15 bucks an hour? I color my hair. I went back to school after my divorce, but one thing that I know...at 43, I'm toast in the job market unless I can disguise my age until they hire me(photcopy my driver's license, etc). The Monster.com job board has tips to hide your age and what to say, and what not to say. For instance, try not to mention that you were a stay at home mother. Don't put down what year you graduated from high school. All kinds of fun ways to snag that 10 dollar an hour job.
It's great to be prudent. The man bought his wife a fur coat in good times....because he loves her. My mom has a full length mink hanging in the closet, which isn't doing her any good because she has Alzheimer's and dementia. I don't think fur goes especially well with Levis, so it will sit there. My parents scrimped and saved, now everything they worked so hard for is being swallowed up by probate lawyers and out of pocket medical expenses.
You are blessed to have a clear head and good luck. You get sick, or stressed out(and I mean stressed), and you can't think. Having a kid with special needs on top of it, and you can get spun. You do stupid things, like panhandle and agree to interviews...
I wish you and your family continued good fortune.
Yeah she should have bought moon pies and RC Cola.
How, by spamming? You wouldn't happen to be running informercials at 2am on my local tv channel? Are you one of those twin midgets (my bad, vertically challenged) hawking ways to get rich off of foreclosed real estate, are you?
No moon pie or RC cola.....just the "typical" BS of the story gives it away as something "cultural" .... something so typically whiny and wussy can only come from the states that gave us "squeegie" men, restrictive gun laws, Boxer, Schumer, Feinstein, Hillary and nipple to mouth government.
Hmmm … a 52 year-old-programmer making >$100,000 in Texas, whose main skill was Lotus Notes ??? Makes me go Hmmm, too.
Hmm. I wonder if there is some way I could make money reading and posting articles on Free Republic. : )
Well where I live you could have purchased 2 bags of carrots or 4 cans of soup or 4 loaves of bread or 2 lbs. of tomatoes and I could get even more if I looked for sales.
Priorities matter and they matter even more when Money is tight! We feed a family of three (plus another adult for lunch each work day) on 150.00 a month!
The family in the article is said to have had a six figure income. if I understand this correctly that means over 100,000. a year! It would take us nearly 5 years for our (me and Mrs. Dawgg's) combined paychecks to equal that one year's paycheck. Yet we could both go 5 years (or longer) without a job and survive quite easily. All because we got our priorities in order long ago.
I've watched friends go through nearly the same thing as these folks in the article. They just couldn't understand why they didn't have any money left at the end of the month.
They asked me for help so I walked them out to their garage and showed them their TWO new SUVs they financed (over 35K each), pointed to their Abercrombe and Fitch clothes and did a once over of their grocery bill and explained what the problem was. All of the stuff mentioned was bought on credit, all of the stuff mentioned are considered liabilities. They were blowing money right and left on stuff that would not put a dime in their pocket. They had a crisis of priorities!
The family mentioned had a crisis of priorities long before they lost the job! They gambled the money train would never stop. They apparently lived an extravagant lifestyle with no thought to a contingency plan for bad times.
I hate to break this bad news to you all but layoffs happen! Further if you don't have the ability to go two or three years (or longer) without a job and still feed your family and maintain your assets then you are dancing on a razor blade.
If you are down to beggin for money on the street then you've definitely need to focus on necessities. Coffee is not a necessity at that point. It is a luxury. Take that two bucks and either buy more food or better yet invest in something that will make you more money.
That takes me back. I grew up in a small Texas town (hint- self proclaimed home of the world's largest pecan). I remember almost everyone in the neighborhood had a vegetable garden and some type of livestock. My grandparents lived down the street and I would see them every day. They had chicken coops, a pig pen, and even a tank for fish. And this was within the city limits of this small Texas town. They also owned some land just outside of the city and raised cattle, pigs, and sometimes even turkeys (though if I recall, turkeys have a habit of drowning themselves when it rains). I remember helping my family slaughter livestock and prepare the meat (sausage, jerky, skirt steak). I remember fishing in the river that ran through our back yard. Sigh. That was a long time ago and of course, everything is different now. I had not really thought back on how we lived until I read your post.
What the hell am I doing in New Jersey?! :)
I have to go call my grandparents now. : )
If you wish to be rich, lower your standards and you'll become rich overnight.'
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