Bee~ Journal of then...

[Farmfresh]

do you guys ever have thoughts about why things never come around? Or do they come around for you?

Well ... I am still living smack in the middle of a city. So... so far NO... all those dreams have not came true for me either.

I think God gives the feisty ones harder lives - we can handle it! Those people that get everything easy never get the great sense of success and accomplishment that we get when we finally get something done that we have been struggling with.

I even thank God that I am not rich. Rich people never get the joy that we do when we have all the bills paid up and have a left over buck or two. Being poor is quite a game!

 

[TTs Chicks]

I know what you mean - seems like just when you think you'll get ahead or "get there" something knocks you back down. I try to remember that it could always be worse and that God never gives me more than I can handle, even though sometimes it feels like I can't.

I do appreciate what I have way more than folks I see that have everything. They don't have what's important.

 

[Beekissed]

Being poor is quite a game!

It certainly is!! The sad part? I think I'm winning it!

 

[PamsPride]

I hear you on the "it seems like everyone has it better'!! A friend of mine was saying a few months back that her DH was going to make $70K last year (2008) while my DH just got his layoff termination notice and he never made close to $70K a year. Then my DH was without a job...no unemployment...for a month. Finally found another job but had to take a $5 an hour paycut...$800 a month!!! That was in August...just talked to her a couple of weeks ago and her Dh just got a layoff and is getting unemployment for 1 whole year at 90% of his pay!!!
I see so many of my friends that have HUGE beautiful homes with large pieces of property but then I remind myself that they are 10-20 years older than me. I am only 29 and they are in their late forties most of them. Plus I have twice as many kiddos or more!! So, I have 20 more years to get to where they are.
I get jealous when I hear about all the vacations to Disney and other places that they go. Or that they have an inground pool. Then I remember that we actually have $$ in our retirement account, savings, and stock market account and they do not even though they make WAY more $$ than we do!! We COULD take all of those vacations and have a pool but then we would be living pay check to pay check and our morgage would probably be as big as theirs instead of half the size!
Then it makes a BIG difference that my DH is NOT on board with being SS or having anymore animals. I don't even tell him how much $$ we have in savings because then he wants to use it for a big screen tv rather than as something to fall back on if something actually happens...like when he lost his job!!

 

[homestead jenna]

I hear you on the "it seems like everyone has it better'!!

I spent ten years working in a financial counseling office. It's astonishing to me how people handle money. The head of the department would always say:

What you have is what you have.

We saw most clients in the below 30K range...but we also saw folks in the 100K+. It's all in how you manage what you have.

 

[OkieJonesClan]

I hear you on the "it seems like everyone has it better'!!

I spent ten years working in a financial counseling office. It's astonishing to me how people handle money. The head of the department would always say:

What you have is what you have.

We saw most clients in the below 30K range...but we also saw folks in the 100K+. It's all in how you manage what you have.

It is soooo true! I have several friends that make over 90k a year, beautiful homes, cars, clothes . . and stress!! They are all balancing credit cards and loan payments. My one friend pays $1100 per month just on car payments! I don't want to live like that. They are loosing sleep over how to make ends meet. Their kids "have to fit in" and have the latest greatest everything. I spent less than $100 total between my 3 kids on Christmas and they were all happy as can be with everything they got. I am much happier in my small, out in the woods home with my little income. I would rather stay up at night thinking how I can use my land and what I can do for myself than wondering if I will be able to balance the CC payments and who is thinking what about my kid because they didn't have the "cool" stuff in thier lunch box that day.
I may never have a big savings account, but I also know that I have so little debt that I can get it all paid off this year, including my one car payment. Who knows, another 10 years and maybe I will have figured out how to produce enough off of my land and barter with others that with no house payment my hubby can work a part time teaching job, like he wants, and I can be at home full time - tending the land and animals.

We may never be "rich" in a money sense, but from a resource, time with family, and ability to use the land sense . . we are all much richer than we realize!

(I will get off of my soap box now . . )

 

[Beekissed]

I don't necessarily think other people "have it better", as I wouldn't have expensive homes, cars, and TVs anyway if I had the money. I wouldn't mind being able to have the money to buy land where I want it and to finance a few projects now and again, have a few horses and other livestock, travel modestly...you know, just basics.
BUT, if I don't ever get those things I won't be sad or mad.

On the flip side of the coin, though, is that I smile more than anyone I know, I laugh more than anyone I know, my kids are sweet, good-hearted people who love other people, my house is warm and snug, I live in a beautiful place and I LIKE where I live!

I'm pleased with everything that God HAS given me, unlike a lot of folks who just want more and more, just to seem successful. I don't need material things for the sheer getting of them, or the status quo, or to gain acceptance....what a dead end life that would be~someone always has something more than you and you would have to always be stressed keeping up!

Its okay for me to look back and see what I wanted and how I didn't ever get there....but maybe I wouldn't be the person I am if I had gotten those things. God sees all, knows all~I'm sure if it had been in His plan to put me there, well, that would be where I'd be.

I happen to like the fact that I "get it"....that few people really "get it" and they wear that lack of "getting it" on their weary, discontented faces every day. You should see the gals in my office....they have farms, husbands, horses, new cars, vacations....they NEVER smile! They are always mad or anxious about something or other and seem to resent me because I come in happy.

I'll take my mediocre life....and like it! I have found the secret to life.....and I ain't gonna give that up for any ol' dream I used to have!

 

[PamsPride]

I don't think we spent over $500 on everything for Christmas...that includes all the kiddos, MIL, BIL, my family, plus DH and I. I have a friend that had a budget of $1500 just for her two kiddos!! Makes super good $$ at her job and HATES every minute of it!! Yet, if she would cut back on the spending she could easily afford to live on just her husband's salary.

 

[Beekissed]

If I've resented one thing in all my life, it would be thus:

The wife and mother who doesn't HAVE to work, as her husband makes good money. She only chooses to work to have more money for more stuff! The reason I resent this, is that I never really had a choice whether to leave my kids or not....I HAD to just to survive. Never had child support or alimony...just jobs and more jobs.

Of all the things I've witnessed in this life, this is the thing that has occupied my thoughts more, tickled my ire more, and made me cry more....that some women have a choice to be with their kids and choose material gain over their own babies. The most precious commodity, the most noble of jobs, the most influence over the future of this nation.....for a new car, jewelry, clothes, vacations, status quo.....stuff.

 

[Farmfresh]

Me too! I am so sick and tired of materialistic people who sacrifice their family for stuff.

When I was working at the Alternative school I saw lots of kids... kids with major troubles. It was amazing how many of these kids came from upper middle class homes. Large fancy houses, expensive new cars, parents with designer suits and desktop computers, but hollow children.

Give me my poor family that actually love each other any day.