The Jaffrey Family Simplifying and Minimizing Project: Part 2

           

        Last post I shared our vision and goal for our Simplifying and Minimizing Project, today I want to share a little bit on one of the main areas we are striving to make a change and how that is hopefully going to change the way we think and value things in our life. If you didn't get a chance to check out my last post, you can see it here: http://faithcanmovethemountain.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-jaffrey-family-simplifying-and.html

      What God is teaching us about Money:

        We live in America in a very entertainment driven society. The advertisements promoted everywhere via billboard, TV, internet and radio, self purposed individuals in our lives, and modern day living protagonists parade the idea and concept that we need things in our lives to be happy. Bigger is better, success is often evaluated biased off income, and the possession of things. There always seems to be more that the world is telling us we need: the latest in technology, bigger houses, better cars, new furniture, more movies, more games, the best in sport gear, the newest trend in the fashion industry, ect. It is so easy to get sucked into the concept that we need things to be happy, or even to survive. Alex and I have had to learn how to live on very little, but as soon as we start making a little more we often find that we still feel like we don't have money. We have found that subconsciously when our income increases so does our spending, often times on things we don't need and that don't have any substantial value. Why? How can we change that?

         We want the way we spend our money and deal with our finances to reflect the heart God and to have a simple purpose: survive and serve. Just because we may have money at some point in our lives does not mean that we should be out spending it on this and that, just to entertain ourselves and reward ourselves just because we could. Instead how can we best use the money God is giving us.

There are three main points that we have come to realize:

      1. God is our true provider, even though Alex works and brings money home God ultimately gives us what we need.  

     2. Any money we have is not our money-It is God’s. We need to ask at all times, “How would He have us use this?” 

    3. No matter how little or much we have financially we are responsible to budget and spend as wisely as we can. The money God provides us is not to blow on frivolous things that have no value or use, simply for the sake of entertaining ourselves. Even if we have a lot, we believe God would want us to  use what we need to take care of our family, but ultimately help His church and bring Glory to Him in every way that we can.

We've struggled with how to apply these to our daily lives and the tights simple budget we have right now. So we've come up with a list of 5 questions that have helped us so far and will hopefully continue to help us. 

     1. Do we need this?

     2. Will this help us? Our marriage? Our family? or the Church?

     3. Is there another more inexpensive, better quality or other option that would be wiser or meet our needs better?

     4. Will this help us save money, spend better in the long run or help us meet our financial goals?

     5. Would this purchase be dishonoring to God in anyway?

As we've prayed and thought over this we have taken a few steps to start spending wiser, and utilizing our purchases in addition to coming up with some saving goals and further purchases.  

One of the big changes we have made in the last month has been switching Charlotte over to clothe diapers. At first we were really hesitant about the change, worried that the mess would be really difficult to keep up with while sharing a laundry room with my parents, but we have been pleasantly surprised. I am rather in love with clothe diapering. By September we will be saving about $60 a month just from diapers. The mess is so easy to clean and Charlie seems to have less rashes with these versus regular. Plus they are super cute. :) 

Other ways we are saving is:

 1. Not having Cable, we spend about $7 a month for Netflix which has a large variety of shows and movies for the family. 

2. Shopping thrift stores for clothes as much as we can, especially on half off days.

3. Not renting movies very often and not going to the movies, rather waiting for them to come out, or going to the $5 bin at Walmart.

4. Making treats and a lot of food at home- eating out less and making things from scratch. (We are eating out of the house a little more than we want to right now, just as an excuse to get out and away from the family for a little bit, but even still we try to be very aware of how much we are spending.)

5. Allowing ourselves a small amount a month for dates and little treats for each other. This has made a huge difference because we know what we can spend, and we are not as tempted to splurge outside of our budget!

6. Making it a game to see who can find things to do as a family that doesn't cost anything or much at all.

7. We make a lot of Charlottes food from scratch too which helps.

  We are learning how to be creative and to make the most of what we have. The tricky part will be to continue doing that if and when we start making a little more money. So here is too simplifying our budget and trying to change the way we think about spending and the thing we think we need.