While You Budget…
Keep in mind the unique purposes and circumstances for your particular family.
The first paragraph of this excerpt from Lyman Abbott's 1896 House and Home
The income of the average American family is estimated at about five hundred dollars a year. The incomes above and below this average represent the upward and downward scale of social opportunities. The problem of living is hardest to solve in the United States for families of refinement, who have the natural ambitions of intelligence, how to live that they may secure at the same time the greatest freedom and the greatest privacy. Rent is the first item. What proportion of the income can be expended for rent? We are told that no man should spend more than one fourth of his income for rent. But we cannot accept this as an unchangeable law, for one fourth of the income of some families will not secure space enough for privacy, and a greater proportion than one fourth must be for rent. This extra allowance then must be secured by economy in other expenditures. The social life, the wardrobe, or the food supply, must pay their tribute to this absolute expense that cannot be brought below a certain point without affecting, not only the comfort, but the health and morals of the family.
Having settled the proportion of the family income that must be expended in rent, the balance of the income then must be divided to meet all the other demands of the family life. Now the problem becomes intricate and tests the wisdom and intelligence of the determining power. Each family differs in the standards of the necessities imperative for the maintenance of family life. Opportunity for education is the uppermost need of one family. Establishing the semblance of social prominence is the one universal want of another family. Clothes that attract the eye of the passer-by is the one desire of another family. What we term a good table satisfies the wants of another family. It is the gratification of the special taste of each family that secures for that family the greatest happiness. We may admire or condemn, but if we are discerning, we shall know that we, in turn, are being criticized for the arrangement of our own lives- that in the judgment of many, we are sacrificing the best things of life, we are not securing the best results for the amount of money at our disposal. Accepting this fact, then, it behooves us to concentrate our attention on our own affairs, being careful to secure the results in our own family life that minister best to the life of that family without regard to outside standards.
Emphasis added.
In addition to personal taste, I would say that each family also has its own unique purpose, and when we budget, we need to take that into consideration. In our family we have guests in our home every single week (and usually more than once a week). Our guests don't just come for dinner, they often spend the night. And the next night. This past week we had one young man who was working in the area stay with us for a week, two young men from out of state come and stay over for four nights and five days, and and then another group of 11 young people, some of whom stayed two nights and a day, and some only spent one day and night. We also hosted a regularly weekly dinner and Bible study at our house, and monthly hymn singing, which brought in around 30 extra people on Friday evening. We also have the two little boys, Blynken and Nod, who generally come for at least two days a week, and quite often four or five days a week. That's washing a lot of extra sheets, and sweeping the grass and dust of a whole lot of feet. We also always have extra people for dinner Thursday nights, and sometimes Fridays. We feed an at least ten extra servings for meals each week (that's ten dinner or lunch guests, not counting the Equuschick and the Dread Pirate Grasshopper, who drop in every day). Hospitality is kind of our thing. We have to take that into account and adjust our meal budget (and recipes) accordingly, but another family wouldn't.
We don't do sports, scouts, 4-H or most other typical extra-curricular activities, so we don't budget for those things, but other families do. We used to have music lessons, and we used to have children volunteer at the library each week. Two of the Progeny mow Granny Tea's yard. One of the Progeny goes into town a few times a month to help another older widow clean her house. We sit with my dad when needed so Granny Tea can do her things. One of the Progeny sometimes mows Shasta's lawn for him (Shasta works 35 hours a week and goes to college full time). We have neither the time nor the inclination for 4-H, and a lot of people in our area think that's strange and stand-offish of us, but it cannot be helped. We tried it, and that was a huge mistake. 4-H is simply not our calling, and it is a terrible cost to our family in terms of time and energy.
Sometimes we bake bread, but other times we buy it- it depends on how many mouths we have to feed and how much other stuff we have going on each week. There have been times in our lives when doing all the baking from scratch was what we needed to do. This isn't one of them (we have a good day-old bread store).
Some families may be dressed in blue jeans 365 days of the year, or perhaps Austen style gowns, or Edwardian dresses, or skirts and blouses. ALL of these are perfectly legitimate, but they all have some impact on the budget. Some families find that 4-H or scouting is a perfect fit for them. Some families may find that afternoon tea with the special silver is just right for them. Others find hamburgers and popcorn works best for them.
Your family might best use its talents in some political area (writing, canvassing, volunteering for a candidate) or in telling jokes and making people laugh. Some families own goats. Others buy the meat and milk from the families who own the goats, and others are strictly vegan.
Some families have the same goals but different means of accomplishing them- some pursue sharing the gospel through street evangelism, others have in-home Bible studies with friends, and some grade papers and answer questions through an international Bible Study correspondence program. And some families aren't religious at all.
I have seven children, and I can tell that each of them are going to have homes that look very different when they are in their own homes, and yet, each of them will be doing what they need to do.
Work at shoring up the weak places when they matter. The ability to sew or not is not one of them, nor do I believe baking bread is necessarily one of those things that matters. Living within your means matters. Self-control matters. Self-discipline, love, diligence, integrity, honesty, cheerfulness, basic math and literacy- these things matter. What your house looks like, what your family does, who the people in your family are supposed to be- enjoy the differences.
Learn from them, too. But be careful about comparing your family to others- I've been discouraged before when comparing my family's grocery budget to others- but I don't know anybody else who has as many people in for meals as we do, so that's an unfair comparison. I've known other families to be discouraged when comparing their families to some other family- but the other family is not doing the same things. Be open to learning new things, but be 'careful to secure the results in your own family life that minister best to the life of YOUR family' and that help you minister to other families, ' without regard to outside standards.'
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2 Responses to “While You Budget…”
April 30th, 2011 at 12:42 pm
well said: “Living within your means matters. Self-control matters. Self-discipline, love, diligence, integrity, honesty, cheerfulness, basic math and literacy- these things matter.”
May 2nd, 2011 at 8:56 am
[...] for YOUR family: By Frugal Hacks …it behooves us to concentrate our attention on our own affairs, being careful to secure the [...]
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