Early in our marriage the Headmaster and I were the recipients of an unsolicited piece of advice. For some reason, rather than resenting it we heeded it, and because we took note of that advice, our lives in the military were much, much less complicated than those of most of our friends.
The Headmaster entered the armed services very shortly before our first anniversary. We were young, dumb, and naive. At our church, a young couple with a little more time in the service took us under their wings and explained some military facts of life to us. The most important thing they said to us was, "Do not go into debt, not even layaway."
They explained that because a military paycheck was so dependable everybody would be eager to offer us credit. They also explained that even though it seemed that a monthly payment of ten dollars here and twenty dollars there wasn't very much, it quickly added up and before we knew it our monthly paycheck would be spent before we could even cash it.
I do not know why we listened to that advice as well as we did, but we did pay attention, and we have never, ever regretted it. We only regret the few times we didn't follow it. Because of that young couple, even our most foolish mistakes were rather tame compared to the financial blunders of many of our fellow military couples. While we did succomb to the siren call of easy credit once or twice, it was only once or twice. With that advice ringing in our ears for the two decades we were in the service, we never used more than one credit source at a time (house payments aside), nor did we ever max out a credit card. We often lived from paycheck to paycheck, but we never had our paycheck portioned out to various credit companies before we actually got it each month.
I was reminded of this wonderful couple and their brilliant advice again this year when I read Hugh Hewitt's book In, but Not Of. Chapter ten covers the same advice that couple gave to us. We have often passed it on to other couples. I would like to pass it on once more. Do not dig the credit hole for yourself. If you have already excavated such a hole, stop digging it deeper, and start getting out of debt now.
Hugh Hewitt says that interest charges are thieves living in your life and that debt is grease on the rungs above and below you in the ladder of life. We agree. Oh, how much we agree. Do not put more on your credit card than you can pay off at the end of the month. Do not portion out your paycheck to creditors in bits and dribbles here and there.
While on that topic, permit me to mention one other bit of wisdom we had to figure out the hard way. If you can only afford to go out to eat on payday, then you cannot afford to go out to eat at all. You should not spend that money on eating out. If you can afford to go to a home party where a hostess is selling kitchen goods or make-up on payday but not in between paydays, then you cannot afford to buy anything at that home party at all. If you can only afford to order pizza delivered to your house on payday, then you really can't afford it on payday, either. Truly.
Try going without those things you think you can only 'afford' on payday. Go without them for a year- and at the end of that year you might just find that you have saved enough money to be able to afford those small luxuries in between payday weekends- occasionally.
This post adapted from our work here.
Oh, dear HM, you must say the things that are so hard to hear, mustn't you? I had signed in and read the later posts after starting the spaghetti water to boiling, and had scrolled down to this one when the time went off. Hubby came home, we ate lunch, and I was putting the children into Quiet Time while he sat down at the computer and, curious to see what I had been reading, began perusing your post. He read with interest, then getting to the seventh paragraph, mused aloud "Oh, that's hard to hear!" We discussed it for a while and decided to go with out our date night dinner out for a year, and without ordering pizza for a year -- we can only ever afford to do that "after Daddy gets paid". We won't do without our evening out, but it will be shorter (less babysitting $$) and perhaps a cup of coffee at Tim Hortons or something like that. Thanks for the advice!
ReplyDeleteGood (but hard) words, HM.
ReplyDeleteIt's not surprising that the Biblke talks so much about money, since money is nothing more than a way of assessing the values of things. It's hard to live within our means since our wants almost always outstrip our resources.
Unfortunately, debt allows us to spend our future income - HH had it right.
Keep up the good work.
Ahhh, Gem, if I could be so pushy as to say a couple other hard things...?
ReplyDeleteI know I suggested a year, but you might be more successful if you make your goals smaller- say two weeks, and then another two weeks, and then another two weeks (or a month). Somehow if we make the goal as long as a year, when we mess up, we say, "Oh well, we already blew it. We'll try again next year." Instead, make the goal periods smaller, so that if you do mess up, you can start again immediately.
Secondly, I strongly encourage you to reconsider how you do date nights. I know, I know, this is anathema in our culture. But think about it- if a date night, meaning babysitters, going out, eating at a restaurant, etc, were really so vital to preserve a marriage, then what did people do in the centuries before we could hire teenaged babysitters and go out for dinner?
Ask yourselves the purpose of your date night, and then figure out how you could meet those ends for free, because you can.=)
The Headmaster and I didn't go on date nights for at least 15 years becuase we could not afford the sitters, and I didn't like sitters anyway. We did find time to be together alone.
My own parents are still married after 44 years, and they never went on date nights, either. They did get up before the children every single morning and have a cup of coffee together on teh couch and just visit and catch up on each other's days (both parents worked fulltime).
You can put the kids to bed early and sit up and visit, play games, make pizza together. The Headmaster and I put ourselves to bed early sometimes and would read a book aloud together.
For other ideas, try here:
http://heartkeepercommonroom.blogspot.com/2005/07/date-nights.html
Thanks for the ideas! I think it's hubby at this point who is pretty adamant about getting out of the house -- I think he has an idea that I need to get away from the kids for a while or I'll lose my mind. I'm not sure where he gets that idea! ;o) But we will probably be trying out these ideas when the babysitter $$ isn't in the budget!
ReplyDelete