Growing up in a religious family, the word "sacrifice" was a familiar part of my vocabulary, both in the old testament sense and a more modern notion. The Gramps, my father, has an awesome job that makes him feel happy and fulfilled by doing what he loves, but it doesn't pull in lots of money. He is self-employed and we've always worked together as a family to support the business. Combine that with The Gigi, my mother, staying home to care for us, home school, and help with The Gramps' business, money was tight! Start with that and then account for my "champagne taste on a beer budget", (if you use southern colloquialisms the rate my family does!) and you have a good idea of how I grew to be the "fancy saver" I am today. If you show me 5 items and ask me which one I like best, it's a good bet I'll pick the most expensive one 90% of the time. Awesome skill for competing on The Price is Right, maybe. Not so awesome when you have to "make sacrifices" to make things work. As a kid I spent a lot of time dwelling on what I didn't have versus what I did. Now I see things slightly differently.
A conversation came up in a motherhood support forum I frequent (but for some reason, cannot log into recently, so forgive the paraphrasing from memory instead of direct quotes), and the topic was being a stay at home mom. On this forum, as in reality, there are moms of every shape, orientation, race, occupation, and otherwise. This thread was focusing on some misguided comments some SAHM's have recieved regarding staying home. Most of them seem to orbit the big F word. Yep, Finances. Lots of moms commenting on the thread had heard things like "I wish we had enough money so I could stay home", "Oh, how nice your husband lets you stay home!", " We just don't make enough money for me to stay home, it must be nice to have that much income!". Most of the SAHMs bristled a little at the implication that they must be rolling in the dough to be able to stay home with their kids (not to mention that they'd need their husband to "let" them...but that's another story). A word that came up in most of their responses to the misguided commenters was sacrifices.
To help squash any misunderstandings right away, let me clarify. Not all parents want to/need to/can stay home, and all parents, regardless of career choices, make sacrifices, both knowingly and unknowingly. It's not just the SAHP set, but since that's the one I have experience with, that's the one I'll be covering. I really dislike when people who have absolutely NO experience with something try to tell you all about it. Thanks, Mrs. Igoogledthis. I'll just go with the person who knows what they're talking about. And yes, now that you mention it, my baby's feet DO look cold. I'll get right on that. I'm going to avoid being that person.
There are many different types of sacrifices one makes in the parenting journey, but to maintain a cohesive post, we'll just cover financial ones today. The Hero and I have a saying we use when we're a little too concerned about MONEY. We say "You're always paying for something, just not always in money." What that means to us is, if you're out making money, you're paying for it in another way. It's a reminder to work to live, instead of live to work. But as fabulously bohemian as that sounds, we're not ready to move to a commune in the woods, and we still need some money to make our lifestyle work. The key is to create a balance between our financial resources, our needs, and our wants. The way it works for our family is The Hero has a job in an office building, and Mompyre has a job in a house/car/grocery store/park/chaos. The Hero's job brings in money, and part of the Mompyre's job is to find ways to get the things we want and need for as little money as possible. I've been thinking recently that I'd write a post to share some of the ways I accomplish this, but I'm a rather verbose individual, so to avoid a mega-post, to simplify, organize, and gain clarity, not to mention maximize my writing time allowances, I'm going to do a mini-series on different EASY ways we've cut back on money while still maximizing our health, taste, and fun. After all, we're making *small* sacrifices, not punishing ourselves. I'm only an expert in our family, not yours, so the tips I share work for us, adapt them to work for you if you like!
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