My Quest for a Simple Life
February 28th, 2007 at 07:07 amPart of my "Saving and Budget Plan" was to get myself back to my simple life.
I didn't use to have debt as in credit cards, attorney fees and small loans. I have always had a mortgage. Then over the past couple years, I replaced my older Jeep with a newer Jeep - add a car payment, had to add Central Air and replace my furnace when it caught fire and burned up during my mom's funeral. Thank God it shut down and caught nothing else on fire (like my home), but added a credit card payment and have been restoring and maintaining my teeth (which is an investment, cause I am only half way through my life - I hope), but that was a large chunk of money put on another credit card or two.
I am eliminating those debts above this year, as in my Plan, by November. I thought about trading in my newest Jeep for an even newer one until I read Jeffrey's link to "keeping the old car and maintaining it". I am good with maintenance. I still have my first Jeep, which my husband is driving and it works just as well as mine, so I am going to fix the items that are wrong on my Jeep (i.e., new brakes and rotors, oil change, windshield wipers and eventually tires) and get it paid off within the next couple of years.
Anyhow, back to my simple life. I live in a comfortable size cottage (about 1600 square feet) on about 1/4 of an acre in which I have a few different gardens and such right next to the Lake and Club I work at in the summer.
I like a good cup of coffee in the morning. I like a couple of different wines every now and then (my favorites are Pelee Island's Ice Wine, Belinger's White Zinfandel and St. Julian's Simply Red). I still have the same everyday dishes I had from 20 years ago. My mom taught me to buy quality to save in the long run. I don't own a lot of knick knacks, they would only need dusting. We have one set of sheets for our beds. I take them off once a week, wash them and put them right back on the beds and we don't own a hugh amount of clothing. Mixing and matching changes the look daily. We only replace what wears out or that my children have grown out of. I just don't feel the need to own so many extras of anything and neither does my family. They are simple also.
We do like technology, music and vacationing. But, we also will can our own strawberry jam in the summer cause it tastes so much better and pick our own tomatoes off our vines for our salads and burgers on the grill.
And, after my encounter with the tax man this week, I am thinking that putting cash in a tin box and burying it underneath the swing set is an awesome idea. I am going to re-visit this later on, cause my encounter with the tax man this week was a huge eye opener.
So, I am off to get another cup of really good coffee with really good flavored creamer and bask in my simple life in my simple cottage with my simple children and husband (well he is at work).
