I've had a coupon for a free shmear at Einstein's Bagels that's been burning a hole in my pocket (sorta speak) since Christmas. Saturday, I was running a bunch of errands and just happened to be in the area of the Einstein's (because I planned it that way) . I stopped in and was immediately greeted by an old friend. As we caught up, I learned that his wife works over an hour away and works 70-80 hours weeks. They have three children at home. I asked, "How does she do that?" He said it's really hard and they hardly see her. Then he somewhat sheepishly added, "Well, once you get used to the money, it's hard to quit."I know what he means. If I chose to go back to work full-time, we would more than double our income. We would be able to do a lot more and buy a lot more. It was so sad to hear him so honestly say that money is more important to them than time spent together as a family.
6 comments:
You should teach classes! People think it's impossible to work on one income when they have tons of debt. They don't know how or where to start.
They think it's impossible only because they don't want to live at or below their means.
There's my class: Live below your means. Your kids don't each need a bedroom of their own. You don't need cable tv and you don't need to eat out that often.
;)
Ya know, one of the best pieces of advice we got from our pastor in our pre-marital counseling was to buy a house and cars that we could afford on my husband's salary alone. When we got our house it was mighty tempting to go bigger (we had the money afterall), but something inside us told us to follow that advice. I kept working until we adopted our first child, and honestly we spent all of it - there was not what should have been there to show for 5 years of two incomes. But we went to one income the day after we brought our baby home and quickly found lots of things we could cut from our budget to make it work. After about 3 months on one income we were kicking ourselves that we didn't stick mine in the bank every month when we had the chance! You didn't give your friend your blog address by chance?
I guess that REALLY sums it up, doesn't it: Live below your means. It sounds sort of simple when you put it that way. Why do we complicate it?
Back when we only had Elena & Chloe, we had a 3 bedroom house. The girls shared a room and the other was a guest room. Now, we have 6 kids at home and a 4 bedroom house. The boys share a room, the girls share a room, and we still have a guest room.
We got a Christmas letter from a couple we know who lived in a spacious 3 bedroom house when they had 2 kids. They said in the letter: when we got pg w/ #3 we knew we needed a bigger house. Kyle and I both laughed that they said: "needed" a bigger house.
Thank you so much for having the courage to write a post like this. I have no many friends who read my blog that work (because they want more money not out of a need) full time and have small children. I wish I could sum it up in words (without being offensive)how important I feel it is to stay at home with your children and how damaging it is to work out of the home like that. I love how you have no fear of blogging about what you know is right!!! Thank you!
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