I grew up in Southwestern Pennsylvania, the land in which Obama and McCain both noticed “where people were different.” This area is a slice of Appalachia. “If you have a pair of shoes on your feet, a roof over your head, a full stomach and a family that loves you,” that was a measure of having “enough.”

Family frugality lessons

My family truly lived within their means and they were proud of it. Neither my mom nor dad cared about “what others thought” about them. One of my dad’s lessons to me was that “living within your means creates happiness and a whole lot less stress in your life.”

To this day, my 78 year old parents (who still live in Pennsylvania in the house I grew up in) put in a half acre garden that feeds the entire community for free during the summer. They also “freeze” and “can” food for themselves to last the winter. My dad is a self taught “butcher,” and a few days ago he told me he butchered one cow and a deer for family meat. My parents mostly go to the grocery store for bread, milk and coffee! They are the only people I know who save money while living on social security. My mom told me they “don’t need that much money to live on,” and they have every thing they need. The amount they receive from social security would equate to what a family of four spends on monthly food in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I grew up in a “waste not, want not” family. It drove me nuts. I wanted more. I always felt like we were living in poverty and every penny had to be counted for. My parents may have thought there was “enough,” yet that was not my experience. So, after I finished my college education (which my parents paid cash for), I headed out to California to create a life of my own. I couldn’t wait to pay for a really great hair cut and indulge myself.

Getting into debt

I ended up about $60,000 in credit card debt and I married a man, who at that time, loved to spend money too. We got ourselves in quite a mess. Our focus was on “MORE,” and we frequently compared ourselves with others. In many ways we measured our success by our possessions rather than the size of our bank account. Our focus was on “accumulation” rather than “being grateful for many blessings we had in our lives”. What can I say, we were a bit immature!

Getting out of debt:

Over the years, we’ve come to our senses in more ways than financially speaking. We got out of debt, built up an emergency savings and investment accounts. We did a lot of things “right.”

Then, the day after Christmas in 2005, illness hit our family, suddenly, unexpected and let’s say it changed our lives. Since that time, we’ve been a one income family. Not only did we need to problem solve finances, we needed to problem solve role changes. We were challenged to really dig deep to find out what we held nearest and dearest to our hearts in the way of priorities and values. We had honest and, at times, hard to hear discussions with one another.

Here we are now, three years out. No debt! We are making it and experiencing a new freedom from the changes we’ve made. It takes me back to the early days of my upbringing in Pennsylvania, “waste not, want not.” We aren’t butchering our own meat or living off the land…but we are making very conscious choices. Today, we know we can live on one income and this gives us great freedom and confidence in our abilities. We have more joy in our lives than we have had in years! We are more connected as a couple and have more energy to have fun! We’ve found that simple pleasures are the best, good friends, good food, a home not in need of repairs and a few good staples of quality clothing goes a long way.

My views and understandings have matured. I better understand my parents and appreciate what I received from them in regard to frugality. It’s not all bad. There is a freedom and power that comes with knowing that having the basics handled is where it’s at. More isn’t necessarily better for everyone.

How we got out of debt

You might wonder what we did (in a concrete way) to make our finances work. Here it is:

1. We created a spending plan and worked on sticking to it. This wasn’t always easy. We stopped shopping at Whole Foods for everything. We now get our meat at Costco and produce at an ethnic market I love! This alone knocked $500 a month off our grocery bill.
2. We eat out once a week, usually at our favorite place for Vietnamese soup, which costs $6.00 a bowl. It’s all fresh, organic and ever so healing. We used to “carry out” at least three times a week plus eat out over the weekend.
3. We changed our “wealth mindset.” Work used to be our priority and we had little energy left on weekends for friends and fun. We “flipped” that and now our focus is spending more time with each other and friends. Instead of “going out to expensive events,” we explore new places in nature to hike. Our focus is on staying healthy and less stressed.
4. We re-evaluated every single penny we spent. We cut down our cable service, netflix package, cell phone plan. We get our dogs groomed every 6-8 weeks instead of 4 weeks and that goes for our hair cuts too.
5. We batch errand runs to save on gas. We never did this before.
6. We think differently today. We ask ourselves, “is this worth us doing?” What’s the return on investment when it comes to our energy and money? We do our best to “live green.”
7. We decided to let go of our gardener to keep our cleaning service.
8. Instead of spending time shopping and tempting ourselves…we walk our dogs or find other activities that bring us joy!

Even if, down the road…we become a two income family again, we have already decided we are keeping our frugal lifestyle. It brought us to the root of what’s important and that’s something we aren’t giving up, ever!

It’s taken me over half a century to see how smart my parents are and how wisely they chose.

If you want support in the New Year in creating the financial picture you desire, I am a phone call away! It brings me great joy to support you in creating your vision of abundance!