My idea of Frugal Living is not the harshness of Austerity and colorless existence! I began thinking of this last night when Lover and I watched a documentary called Inequality for All with Richard Riech. Mostly I didnt trust it and put my Propaganda Watcher hat on as I tried to glean some kind of truth that I could take away from it to make a transformed life. But basically this piece talked about the demise of the middle class in the U.S. and how the people of our country are dealing with it. Ive often thought of this as my age gives me a perspective on how things have indeed changed since I was a child. For instance, I grew up in a time when people lived in the same place for decades. Our little neighborhood stayed intact from the time I was a kindergartner well into the time when Lover was picking me up in his old black bomb. I grew up with close neighborhood relationships and to this day still keep in contact with them over FB! Most all of the Mothers on Pua Dr. were Stay At Home Moms but the term had not cropped up yet because the Work Moms were the odd balls. By the time I became a Mother it was a brazen act to raise your own kids at home but at least within a Churchy environ it was supported by the community. Now-a-days as I start off on my daily beach walk through the neighborhood I feel empty house after house after house where two have to work outside the home and children are shuttled off to day care or school/after school care. No one is home to fill out the spirit of the family. That documentary told stories of families with good full time jobs that just barely keep things going in terms of paying rent, utilities, childcare, car payments and such. Then there were stories of what happened with the tenuous status quo was disturbed by lay-offs or sickness! It was rather bleak I must say and I couldnt help but make the correlation between that and an old Bible story of the Children of Israel captive in Egypt. In Slavery they made bricks for the ambitious building projects as their jobs. More bricks were needed all the time and longer hours were demanded. Like the 5 FWY outside my back windows at the Monastery I see the slave culture heading out two and fro slaving it to make just enough to carry on. Soon the Pharaoh demands more bricks once again and the slaves said sure, more straw please, well get more bricks...but the answer was more bricks, less straw! It appears that THAT is what is being presented once again. Imposed Frugality is not pretty, its actually called Austerity in Europe and gives the feel of the Dark Ages in my imagination. As for Lover and I, it was our intention that we would live within our means AND raise our family at home. Id like to say that back then it was totally within reach, all it took was a little tweaking and some imaginative wrangling, but let me tell you I did feel the pinch of our decisions and have spent some time in tears and fears over the past! We made it through for sure but not without some challenges. For instance my lifetime of work outside the Matrix has left me without any kind of resume or Social Security Benefits. There will be no Golden Years of retirement in my future, I will be totally trusting God as I always have, and in a way Im blessed for it. This way of life gives us much opportunity for living fully into the Present Moment and that is exactly where one must be to access Genius Ideas. So Frugal Living has always been a way of life for me personally and will continue to be until I pass this plane. If you are just now starting on the path I have a few pointers about how to live within your means and like it! First thing for me is to surround myself with beauty. My taste for beauty has been culled of all pre-fab-store-bought-cookie-cutter STUFF. My taste is for natural growing things, personally painted things, repurposed useful things. Because of the type of work that Lover has done in our life he finds that he sometimes works in the local mansions. Occasionally I don a uniform and give him a hand. When I see the cookie-cutter mansions and their fancy furnishings I often think of how much SAMENESS is going on in this strata of people. The shiny granite kitchen counters, the Italian tile entry ways that echo when you come in. They remind me of grand hotels! Maybe its all those years of pouring over Country Living Magazines once I got the kids to bed that give me the taste for simplicity. Another helpful hint is to stay out of the honey trap of the Mall. I live in the land of Malls, I remember when Malls first came into being. South Coast Plaza used to be a po-dunk place that hi lighted Sears before it became the playground for the Ultra Riche in our area. I have never been a window shopper and that has helped immensely! When I do shop its for groceries and my habit has always been to shop the edges, I never go into the belly of the beast where all the pre-made stuff is. When Costco came on the scene it made it even easier for me because I bought in bulk, saved and went to the store less. I have always bought my clothes from garage sales and thrift stores and in the past few years Ive noticed that the clothes I have now are decades old! My shoes are thongs and boots, only a token pair of heels remains. When we go out its to watch the sunset on the cliff, to take a walk on the beach or to visit family. Our extra funds are spent on items one may call tools. For instance two big purchases recently have been the Dehydrator and the Vitamix...last year it was the juicer. These tools are a form of our healthcare and a source of non-bake sale items for Raw Food Enthusiasts in our area. So the potential to make money is also a part of these purchases. We have one car and in the land of two or more cars per household this is an oddity! But it does save on gas and unneeded purchases for Ive come to see that when one leaves in the car it often leads to making a purchase somewhere for something! Obviously our gardens and animal husbandry is part of our frugal lifestyle...but at this point it may not be saving us money just yet. Im working on ways to grow my own animal fodder and perfecting the Green House for my own seedlings, harder than one may think mind you! But there is hope in sight once we get more fully into our farm life experiment! We also do not buy gifts at the manufactured holidays. We do not buy them for each other either...never really have. Its been incredibly freeing to loose ourselves from the Christmas thing and even the tyranny of making hand-made gifts is gone! We give all the time but it is spontaneous and unprescribed! Also because we practice Shared Living our expenses are shared as well. It affords us the ability to slow the feverish pitch of living in South Orange County the most materialistic place on the planet and to really enjoy taking a breath in the midst of the bustle. Communal Living is not as difficult as one may think! Ive always enjoyed it and if one can get past the Pain Body and the habit of being Offended that our times cultivate it becomes a very peaceful, joyful way to live. In this way each person does not have to have their own washing machine, t.v. or computer, or even car! We can take quite a few lessons from the Eco-Village movement in the Sharing Community. Home Cooking is a corner stone of the Frugal Lifestyle! Granted, if you live on dollar burgers you may be getting by on $5 a day and I dont think I can beat that, but in the long run the health benefits of home cooking make up for that! There is so much bounty in Vintage Kitchen Skills, so very much healing in good ol fashioned bone broths and herbal remedies! It looks like the next frugal contemplation will be on the soaring gas prices in California for us. We have cut back our territory by hundreds of miles in the past 4 years but it may be time to put our Genius Ideas to the test in this next round coming up! Higher gas prices means higher prices for everything! Frugal Living may become more envogue as the times wear on! Love and Bless Bless, J TheMoonMother.net Living Simply Living Free
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 13:56:04 +0000
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