There is a lot to be said for the way previous generations lived. With no credit or easy finance to fall back on they had to learn how to make their money stretch from one pay day to the next. They couldn’t spend money they didn’t have and so if they wanted something they had to save for it. If they needed something they had to budget it in. And sacrificing wants for needs was something they automatically did.
Today though, we live in a ‘have-it-all-and-have-it-now’ society. We have lost the ability to separate our luxuries from our necessities. We rely on credit as a way of life. The rapid sales of the iPhone 5 last week proved that despite the fact that the world is supposed to be in the midst of a global recession, we’re still not anywhere near experiencing true hardship.
Mike and I, like so many others, spent our twenties accumulating debt which took very little time to mount up. Our thirties hit and so did our determination to tackle the debt mountain. We are now very close to approaching our forties and the debts, whilst no longer a mountain, are still of reasonable molehill proportions.
We have learnt a lot over the last few years about budgeting, saving for things, waiting for things and sacrificing. We have learnt that needs aren’t the same as wants, and we’ve learnt to move away from the pressure of consumerism and the ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ mentality.
But there is still so much we can learn simply by looking back at how things used to be and how things were done once-upon-a-time, not so long ago. And these lessons of going back to basics are the root of getting back on top of finances, of stepping out of materialism and of finding out what really matters in life.
Clue: It’s not about ‘stuff’.
So we’ve decided to bring moneysaving and budgeting up a notch or two at Larger Family Life. We”ll be bringing everything from quick, handy tips from the pre-credit era, rediscovering old skills, traditional recipes, crafts and more. You can start right now by conjuring up a home-made cleaner or two. Perhaps we’ll even throw in a challenge here and there.
So, who is with us?
Leave your ideas of anything you’d like to see here in the comments or over on our Money & Finance section of the forums.
I am so with you! I too racked up some debt in my early twenties, and although not a huge amount, it still gets to me that I have it hanging over my head. I am clearing it off slowly, but know there is so much more I could do (as well as the hubby).
me too!!! hubby and i are trying to become debt free, we are renting our home so hopefully can save enough over the coming years to put a mortgage deposit down, that asside we dont want any debt appart from a mortgage and not even that if we can help it! our goal is to save 2-3000 per year after our debts are cleared. we both had student loans so they need to be gone to.
we hope that we can help our kids to go to uni so they dont have the burdeon of the loans that we have today!
save, save, save.
ive adopted a shopping mentality of- do i need it? will i use it?? can i get it cheaper/free elswhere?? doing this i often put things back!!!