Family and Finances: Episode 7, Part 2

You know, Anne, you've really, in our marriage, you've been the one that's known how to be content. You've had to bring me along in that way. You were raised with less, and you were more grateful for what you had, and it didn't take a lot for you to be pleased, and you're not materialistic. And so you taught us some of the practices of things that we could do to save money. Well, I know that we went through some really tough times, and then when I started taking over paying the bills, I was very aware of our need to cut expenses, and so I tried to do everything possible. One thing was, you know, we started eating leftovers. We didn't have to have a new meal every evening, leftovers. I tried to get creative with those, tried to disguise them for you. I'd even buy, in quantity, things that were on clearance at the grocery store, freeze things and try to come up with ways to use what we had on hand. When it comes to entertainment, we've never been big spenders on entertainment, really. We're pretty content with walking, hiking, spending time with friends. That's been hard during this COVID season. Well, so many people think when there's a new book out or they want to read something, they immediately order from Amazon, but not you. Well, what we do is we put books we want to read in our cart, our shopping cart, and then I find them at the library. Right. You go to the library, and if they don't have them, they'll sometimes order them. We save a lot of money just not ordering books. Well, we just, yeah, I get them through the interlibrary loans. Yeah, we're Prime members. That saves us a lot of money, and so we're not Netflix subscribers. We use our Prime membership, and we usually rent movies that we don't pay anything for. Right. We do.

We love watching documentaries, and we typically get the Prime ones. Yeah, the ones that you can click on there, stuff that's included so that you don't have to pay two or three or four dollars because all those things begin to add up. I think you were reading an article recently, Ann, of just what it means over a lifetime to cut out a little expense. Right. Richard Quinn with The Humble Dollar had published an article over at Market Watch just this week, and he was adding up things that couples spend money on, and it came to like 800-something thousand dollars over a 40-year period of time, whether it's buying soft drinks, alcohol, cigarettes, oh, just on and on interest that we pay on credit cards and eating out. It all adds up. Yeah, contentment allows you to say no to the things that you feel like either you think you need, and when you stop and analyze them, you realize they're not a need. They're just a want. They're just a desire. I grew up wanting one day to have a red Corvette because back in my day, the Corvette was sort of the car that every boy dreamed of, and I thought one day I will achieve that goal. And I look back on it, and I think I'm perfectly content with a 2007 used Toyota. It's not red. It's not fast, but it's reliable. And I look back, and I think, well, why did I think I needed that? I don't need it. And we've been able to save a lot of money on our cars where we really get a lot of value out of our cars. Our philosophy is to buy used and to drive them until they're not maybe totally reliable anymore, and then we'll get them retooled, refixed, re-maintained, and pass them on to somebody that can use them. And so that's been a real big savings for us. And then we went through a period of time where we lived in rentals. How about that townhouse we lived in in New Orleans?

Do you remember that, Chuck? Oh, yeah, I remember it. I remember a lot about it. And it was so bad that I asked the owner if we could change the carpet. And he said, yes, but you'll have to pay for it. And we paid for the carpet to be changed in something we were renting. Right. Well, we had a little boy at the time. The one thing I did love about the place was that swimming pool. I was pregnant in the heat of New Orleans, and our two-year-old and I spent hours in that pool. And I do remember we rented a place one time, a little dune. and our first electric bill was $300 because the air-conditioning unit was too small for the Texas heat. No trees, we had no trees. You would go to the mall and push the boys around in a stroller just to cool off because our house, we couldn't run it, we couldn't afford to run our air-conditioning and so you figured out a way to get around that and then you've always been great about buying used clothing and shopping for deals. Well you used to make fun of me for doing that because I'd get excited if I found a great deal. Right, it was a treasure to you and you loved, like you can, when we go to a new town you're thinking where are the used thrift shops. Or consignment shops. That's the last thing on my mind. Well if we're going to a nice city or town, it's a great place. It's a great place to find deals. I know and you've even had some of your friends go on treasure hunts. Board members' wives enjoy doing that with me. Three or four of you go out and treasure hunt. Yeah, look for Waterford crystal and stuff. I can't imagine spending hours in those thrift stores but you enjoy it, not hours. I don't spend hours. But you also always look for a coupon and before you buy anything you're going to find something on sale. Well and especially if we shop online, there's a lot of times you can go to RetailMeNot or just type, you know, Google coupons for whatever your, whatever company you're

trying to buy something from and a lot of times you can find one, whether it's free shipping or a percentage off. I remember one time you told me you were dressed for some evening out. You looked great. I was very happy with the way you looked and when I complimented you, you went through every item you had on and told me where you got it and how much it cost. And I think from your scarf all the way through to your boots, we were under $40 in what you were wearing. Well I've always felt like you were the one that was up front. So we wanted you to look nice. You were the one that needed new clothes and I was home most of the time so I tried to just keep my expenses to a minimum. Well it's not, you don't, you don't buy things in the thought of trying to be impressive. You're free of that, that there's a confidence you have in your identity in Christ that you know that the things aren't going to matter. And so I know when I get excited, I'm the big spender and when I get excited about buying something, you'll usually ask me you know what's that going to look like when it goes to the landfill because that's where it's all going to end up. Well I do know that we found a great deal last week on some shoes for you and you gave in. You gave in. I had tried on some hokas several weeks ago just because my feet were hurting and they didn't have my size. So when I found some on sale for you, that was pretty exciting. Yeah they were. They were, they were 60% off and that meant that nobody else wanted them. Yeah, color. The color wasn't great but we wanted the deal. So we didn't get the color we wanted but we got a great pair of shoes because we use them walking a lot. you