28
Dec 2008

Staying The Course

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I hope that you’ve all had a good week, and are doing some relaxing and exhaling this weekend now that the hustle and bustle are over.  We had a very mellow Christmas with my family.  There were 11 of us here, lots of food, and of course lots of snuggles for the baby.  We went to a white elephant party last night, and then hung out with another group of friends tonight.  We’re normally homebodies, so this has been a busy week.

The house we were at tonight is beautiful.  We’ve known these people for several years, but this was the first time we were at their house.  They’re in their early 20s, but have a house much larger and fancier than ours.  And they have all sorts of great stuff – a treadmill, beautiful furniture, flat screen tvs…

Even though I love being frugal, and love our simple life, I’ll admit to a bit of coveting now and then.  Tonight I was loving the couch (a beautiful chocolate brown wrap around sectional), the treadmill, and the huge master suite.  For a minute, I found myself wanting those things too.  Then I reminded myself that I wrote a check today to pay and additional $2000 towards our mortgage in January.  I suppose we could have a new couch and a bigger house if we wanted, but we’ve decided that we’d rather own our house as quickly as possible.  That means that we’ll just keep on living the way we always have, buying only what we need, shopping in thrift stores, and keeping our expenses to the bare minimum in order to be able to put as much money as we can towards the principal on our mortgage.

Now that I’m back home in our comfy little house, I’m perfectly happy with our thrift store furniture and cozy rooms.  I like knowing that our house will be ours a lot sooner than it would be if we spent our money on things to put inside it.   And when I look at our son, I’m reminded that the best things in life aren’t things, nor can they be bought.  All we really want to do is be able to spend our time with him.  For us, that’s a huge motivating factor to live frugally, since it means that we don’t have to spend as much of our time earning money to pay for our lifestyle.  And it feels really good to know that we’ve managed to nearly triple our mortgage payment for January.  It required some scrimping, but it’s done.  Now to just repeat that process 11 more times next year, and avoid being tempted by wonderful couches…

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  • http://healthywealthymoms.blogspot.com/ Terri healthymoms

    Congrats on being that disciplined. thats a good goal to have to pay off one’s mortgage and live frugally. I am starting to at this late date (losing half my income) have any advice for me? I started couponing, rebates, lowering costs wherever I could.

  • April

    Sometimes I feel the same way, but a lot of times, it’s also a confirmation of things I don’t want. Like sitting at a relative’s house watching cable TV reminds me why I don’t bother with cable TV. There’s still not much on, and I’d still rather be doing other things–reading, working out, organizing things, just DOING.

    I get more envious of vacations to Europe and Mexico. Our travel fund is our “fun money”, it just takes awhile to save up.

  • FrugalBabe

    @Terri healthymoms: The best advice I have for living frugally is doing without most of the time, and never buying anything new when you could get it used instead. That goes for pretty much everything (furniture, clothes, appliances, cars, etc.) Good luck!
    @April: I agree – for the most part, being around heavy duty consumerism (like at the mall on the rare occasions I end up there with a friend) just serves to remind me of how glad I am that we don’t live like that. The house we were at last night had at least four TVs, and most of the people there were gathered around one of them. It reminded me of how glad I am that we have one TV that gets about 13 channels – I’d much rather be doing other things with my time than watching TV.

  • http://www.myfrugalfreedom.com Daizy

    I know what you mean. I have been tempted to go shopping at after Christmas sales…but for what? I don’t NEED anything and if I don’t need it then I am wasting money.

  • Wilm

    Hi,

    Well done on the extra mortgage payment!!!

    I read here regularly and really enjoy it.

    I totally agree that our society is far too into “stuff”, but also find that we frugal types can be just as obsessed with saving money, doing with less.

    Do you find that you spend too much time thinking about money and obsessing about your financial goals?

    Just wondering! After all, your blog is FRUGAL BABE so I would expect most of what you to write to be about frugality etc.

    Cheers, Wilm

  • http://farmhomelife.blogspot.com/ Trixie

    Hello,

    Congratulations on sticking to your lofty goal of paying off your mortgage early!

    My husband and I are making that a priority too and cannot wait for the day we make that last payment:) Sometimes we get the “wantsies” too but try to focus on the bigger picture.

    It’s not as if we forgo anything nice for ourselves at all, it’ just that we realize we cannot buy new cars, a new sofa and a big screen tv and still expect to pay the mortagage off too:)

    Blessings,

    Trixie
    http://farmhomelife.blogspot.com/

  • Pingback: FBN Roundup- Christmas is Over Edition : Tight Fisted Miser

  • http://amommoneyandmore.blogspot.com SonyaAnn

    I too have had that feeling quite a bit lately. I look at our well worn carpet, our white painted trim and wonder why we are working so hard to pay it off. But then I end up hearing someone with all the very pretty things in life talking about how they are drowning in debt and then I remember. But it is still hard. Thanks for the reassurance and the reminder.

  • http://www.outofdebtagain.com Mrs. Accountability

    I have experienced this, too. It’s good to know I’m not the only one. Except I know that I don’t want a bigger house because it’s enough to keep this one clean. ;-) Sounds like you had a great Christmas!

  • dogear6

    There’s another factor here too.

    When my (now adult) daughter was young, we went to a party at the house of a work friend of mine. The house was huge and the toys were impressive.

    Our daughter ripped us up afterwards that we didn’t give her the same lifestyle. Her Dad and I informed her that she saw me every night, but the children she just played with seldom saw their Dad because of his travel and work schedule.

    It took her many years to realize that the fancy house and toys did not equate to love and solid relationships. When in college she realized that our more modest lifestyle (her Dad stayed home to raise her) gave her riches far more than others had.

  • April

    @FB–We were kidding my BIL because he was itching to get surround sound (his system broke) and it was bothering him that he hadn’t had a chance to go and replace it yet. We told him we were ready to go home if it meant watching movies in high def WITHOUT surround sound. This is particularly funny because he knows we have a 13″ box tv, the VHS/DVD player my husband bought several years ago in his bachelor days, and no cable.

    My BIL is not irresponsible by any means, though. He just makes enough money to have these things, but he carries no consumer debt, so hey, why not?

    If it were us, we’d spend that extra cash on travel before toys, but everyone has their own thing.

  • FrugalBabe

    @April: Too funny :) Our TV was a pretty sweet machine back in 1995 when my husband was in college and got a tax refund that was big enough to pay for a TV. We will keep it until it dies, and it’s showing no signs of doing so. And we’ll always be a one-TV household.

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