So today we're talking about how the Geezer and I acquired a kind of financial peace ... this may not work for you ... but this is the story of 'us'.
And hey ... right up front I'll just tell ya ... we are NO WHERE NEAR ... wealthy ... but we can have pretty much everything we need and a lot of what we want ... because we have always used a budget and even today we save and spend wisely. And our home in the photo? That was built by hand and we do all the upkeep, cook from scratch and do very little frivolous/impromptu spending ... ... let me tell you more
I've had so many mention in emails
SO finally after responding to a few messages like that last week, I told Kim I thought I was going to do a blog about how we got to where we are now and how we came to have kind of a 'financial peace.
There has never been a 'silver platter' in our lives. Neither of us had a rich uncle that we were waiting to go on to glory and leave us a fortune.
TONS of what we have now ... even furniture ... has been with us most of our almost 50 years together. And if it hasn't it either came from a flea market :8) or we made it with our own hands.
But we take care of things and we don't make it a habit of throwing things out just so we can go buy new. If it's broke we fix it ... if it needs mending ... we mend it.
If it's old ... which most everything is ... we find ourselves saying ... and often ... "Gads aren't we blessed this old thing has held up this long"
I thought we were going to have to buy a new washing machine last week and I was almost panicked. Geezer said "It's ok ... the thing is almost 25 years OLD" I said "But if we're going to spend $400 to $600 "I" want to buy something we don't already HAVE ... like a little shed for the garden" :8)
Geezer couldn't fix the washer ... so we called Mark Kennedy our friendly appliance repair man and he said "You're smart to keep this thing going as long as you can ... because they just don't make appliances this good any more. You're lucky you've gone over 20 years without needing repairs on it." :-)
Well okie DOKIE, then!!!
Let's go look at little sheds now and find one I can distress and make it look like it's 100 years old...
When we got married in 1967, Geezer was in the service and back then they didn't make even the money they make now in the service. It literally was 'chicken feed' as they say.
SO Billy borrowed $500 for us to get married, go on a 3 day honeymoon and get us started with a new life in Colorado Springs ... where we spent the first 7 months of our marriage while he was finishing up in the service.
When we came home from Colorado Springs after our first 7 months together, his mom and dad offered us the house beside them, which they also owned ... for $4,000. We thought we were in heaven. SO Geezer borrowed the money to buy that house.
Being newly weds from the baby boomer generation, we were not into 'shopping' or eating out or being spend thrifts ... we already had each other and our own home and we thought we had it all ... which we did.
Geezer would send me to the bank with our monthly house payment and then extra to pay on the principal. EVERY SINGLE PAYDAY he would give me a certain amount of money ... whatever we could afford ... to pay on the principal even though no payment was due that week. We paid for our home in town in about 2-3 years.
Now Geezer was working construction part of that time and made good money and we just didn't spend just to be spending so really ... it was fairly easy.
When we learned Kim was on the way after living in town for 7 years, Geezer wanted to move to the country and raise our kids out here so they could go to country school and we'd have more space.
SO he found the property for us and drew up the house plans himself for our home and found he was going to need about $25,000 to build this house with us doing the work. Now that doesn't sound like a lot to build a home like we have ... but remember, this was 1974 and we were going to do the work ourselves. We ended up needing $27,000 but was able to pay that off in 7 years using the same method as I mentioned above to pay off our first home ... making all payments on time and paying on the principal every payday when a real payment wasn't due.
WAY before Dave Ramsey and 'his' financial peace training program came on the scene, I was taking our paydays and making envelopes and I'd divide our money as it needed to be divided for 'us'.
I'd have an envelope with money for groceries and one for gas for our vehicles and one for this and that necessity and one for miscellaneous.
I set down and made out a budget that would work for 'us'. Which meant that we bought anything we needed ... sometimes saving in advance for it ... and we didn't even give any thought back then to frivolous spending because that just wasn't IN the budget for a growing family.
And it goes much deeper than the simple way I described it ... but it worked for US.
I remember one day Geezer's mom was talking about where they had gone for supper and it dawned on me that we hadn't even gone to McDonald's in over 2 years. We ate at home but made meals fun by letting the kids plan menu's and we'd have pallet picnics in front of the TV and real picnics at the park. We were very creative in our saving and spending.
When the kids got older and always had lights and the television on and the electric bill started going up ... I made a game of having them read the meter on the pole in front of the house each day ... and every day they had to try to beat the kilowatts we had used the day before. They were so excited to do this ... they'd all 3 run out there together with their little pad and pen and read the meter each day to see if they had used less kilowatts than the day before by turning lights and television off when they didn't need them.
It's just simple things like that and it's the way we've always been. WE ARE TIGHT WADS but we have absolutely everything we need and a lot of what we want.
We have worked for every penny we have and we are savers before we're spenders.
This photo of our porch? I bought this table with 4 chairs in 1994 from a couple in Vienna. I gave $125 for it but knew they made them so I saved the money ahead of time. The other 2 chairs are at another table on the porch and I gave $5 for 'that' little table. I wore a blouse to church Sunday that I bought in 1993 ... but it still looks like new ... so why replace it. I can't even remember the last new 'nice' outfit I bought. I live in jeans and t-shirts so what do I need with fancy or expensive clothes. I have 2 dresses but can't remember the last time I had either one on ... it's been years. KIM calls them my funeral dresses but I don't even wear them for funerals any more ... I usually wear pants and a dressy blouse or sweater.
It's just a matter of getting your priority list in order.
Do you go shopping just because it's the weekend?
Do you just go 'look' for something to buy to make you feel good?
Sometimes I'll hear of a family that needs help with food and I'll take a big bag or two to them. But one day I drove up to a home and the mom was sitting on the porch playing with her cell phone ... the kind of fancy phone that you get on the internet with.
SO I told her I was there to give them a few things ... but I added ... If you can't put food on the table for your kids ... do you really feel you need a mega dollar cell phone? She looked shocked and aggravated but I didn't care ... I had just spent a wad of OUR money to help feed HER kids and then found her sitting on her hind end playing on a mega dollar cell phone ... and I had a 4 year old $15 tracfone in MY pocket.
I had gone just before time for school to be out that afternoon and took some good basics but also took them a big bucket of KFC with all the trimmings because a teacher at the kids school had told me how pitiful the kids were and I was trying in my own way to pamper the kids a bit....but I was almost livid at this lazy mom with the filthy house I could see inside that front door and I was feeling a little bit of the devil in myself when I left because I had a strong urge to pull her hair out...
I DO realize prices of everything are going through the roof. And it would be very hard today to keep a house going with one income. HOWEVER with a little organization and meal planning and this and that ... it absolutely CAN be done.
SO if I make it sound easy I don't mean to ... but you have to want to DO it. Then you have to make a good plan and stick to it.
Peace and love from the canyon ... I love you all gobs and thanks so much ... for stopping by!
Pt. 2 Making a Budget!
#budget #finances #financial planning
There's much more to see, read and explore if you have time... Love, Favorite Home Remedies, Health, Recipes from the Kitchen in the Canyon, Gardening and Such
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