Remember the days when shopping for something on sale seemed ridiculous? If you wanted a pair of Guess jeans you just charged them on your Ayres card?
Well, maybe I am dating myself, but in my early twenties I was NOT a frugal person. Yes, I actually went to the mall and shopped, and did not care if they had a playground!
As life goes continues and people get married their priorities change. Or at least they should. Credit cards need to be put by the wayside and never used again! That is right…I am against credit cards. If you don’t have the money to pay for it, then you don’t need it! This is coming from someone who had every card imaginable.
My views are very different now due to children, the Bible and my husband and paying my way out of a mountain of debt. We are not to have too much stuff. Stuff creates anxiety within us and we always want the next one out.
Credit cards do not help they only prolong the inevitable….you still have to pay the bill!
When children come into the picture views on money begin to change because of need to teach them that we work for what we want, that means being a good example. Second, spoiling them is not giving them a better life. Love, patience, and understanding is giving them a better life. Stuff goes away.
Finally, when disaster happens the money needs to be there. It took me many years to pay off all of my debt including student loans. They are all gone now and I will happily drive my 10 year old van until the wheels fall off because it is paid in full. It may not be pretty, but it is ours! If I could go back and redo the damage there would probably be close to $100,000 sitting in my bank account.
After paying them off I realized how hard it really is to save money and let it accumulate. It really doesn’t grow on trees!
Now, we do still live on one income, but money is not as tight as it would be with useless bills like credit cards and car payments. Do we still live in our means? Do we still save and teach our children good habits about money? Yes. Just because money is not tight does not mean we frivolously spend or forget all of our frugal ways.
Money is not meant to be spent unwisely, even if there is an abundance. A certain amount each month should be set aside to save.
It means to save for your future, and continue the coupon cutting, the home manicures, and buying used clothing.
A penny saved is a penny earned!
We are doing fine financially–but both of us have always been savers. It was the way I was raised. So I buy used, and we pay for it up front. I do use credit cards–but we pay it off every month. I use them more for the rewards–every year I get gift cards for the teacher’s gifts and my brothers-in-law with the rewards. So we keep saving as when we buy a car–we want it paid for. We have never had a car bill, never had credit car debt. We do have a mortgage, but we are paying extra to try to get that paid off as fast as we can. We are careful with our money, we work hard, and God has blessed us. I know that some people do all the things I do, and still struggle so wherever someone finds themselves, we have to rely on the Lord and stay humble and keep eternity in view.
Ugh, I hate credit cards! They got me into lots of trouble, or rather I LET them get me into trouble. I am now almost completely debt-free, just a bit of student loan left. I don’t ever want to live the way I used to. Nice post.
Oh yes, we tend to save even more when more money is coming in! Very important for us! And I had a bad experience with credit cards in college – I won’t use them now at all!
I agree with putting away the credit cards!!! From my parents’ example growing up, I learned to spend and use credit cards carelessly and not pay off debt until I left college with thousands of dollars of debt. I write about some of this in my blog post here: http://www.whatsonmymindgrapes.com/2009/02/19/beat-the-man/
Definitely thankful for freedom from credit card debt, though now it’s school loans we are battling. 🙁