lifestyle changes

Over the past few months, Chris and I have felt the Lord calling us to be better stewards of our money, our earth, and our health. To that end, we've been slowly trying to incorporate little changes into our daily lives to live healthier, greener, produce less waste, and save money. Most of these things come from tips we see on the internet where we think, "we could do that," and then we give it a shot. Some examples are making our own vegetable broth from veggie scraps, composting, and replacing our normal cleaning products with natural products like vinegar, peroxide, baking soda, and castile soap. And probably a few things that are so integrated into our daily lives at this point, that we've forgotten it's something "new" that we adopted. This is, of course, aside from all the cooking food from scratch that we've started doing since I learned about all my food allergies. I didn't really realize how many "strange" things we were doing until my mom came to visit in December and I found myself explaining all sorts of things to her (like what we were doing putting the butt ends of our onions in the freezer).

Well, this year we've had to put a whole new spin on things and kick it up a notch, because just like the rest of America, our income has been cut significantly from what we were making last year. And on top of that, we're adding a member to the family! At first I was really frustrated... we had worked so hard last year to become better stewards of our money and to be content with what we have, so it was really hard on me when our "reward" for that success was a further income cut. I started out being really stressed about our situation (well, to be honest, I still am stressed about it many days), especially when I realized that there was nothing new I could do to add to our income (there are only so many hours in a day), and that Chris was doing all he could as well. So since the only option left was cutting costs, we started brainstorming for ways we could make ends meet by spending less, instead of making more.

So we've been reading lots of money-saving blogs for tips and ideas, and generally asking ourselves what we can cut out or do differently. You may have noticed that Chris is especially obsessed with getting stuff for free, like food at restaurants, products at CVS, and of course our washer and dryer (although the jury is still out on whether or not those are working well enough to keep them. hmmmph). We've gotten better at cutting down eating at restaurants (we had cut down to about once a week, on Sundays, but have even tried to cut some of that out as well), and I've gotten much better at making my own ghetto lattes at home to bring to work, and "just saying no" to buying coffee work. We decided to cut down our meat consumption, and to use more dried and sprouted beans instead of canned beans, as yet another way to save a few dollars here and there. Finally, we've gotten better at questioning our normal grocery store purchases... certain convenience foods have to be put back if they're not on sale or necessary for a specific reason (like if we're traveling out of town and I have to have snack bars to take with me), and some foods were substituted for cheaper brands or different products (cream if rice for my breakfast is cheaper than cream of buckwheat, and just as tasty).

To be honest, I wasn't sure if all of this was going to work or not. I kind of felt like these things were all just drops in the bucket and we wouldn't really notice a difference at the end of the month. And I was so stressed about money that I didn't log our receipts from the month until yesterday (usually I try to keep up with it on a weekly basis so we know where we stand as we get closer to the end of the month). Imagine my surprise when I saw that, aside from buying a used car this month (an unavoidable necessity), we actually broke even for the month!

Some examples... although we ate at home a little more than we had been, we spent close to $200 less in groceries than our average month (and just so you know, that somehow meant it was actually EASIER for me to get all my necessary vitamins and minerals in my pregnancy diet, including calcium, protein, iron, and folic acid). We're still buying organic for the essentials (apples, dairy, eggs, etc), and we fed other people a few times. We also spent about $20 less on eating out, even though we paid for a friend's meal once in our month. I realized that in the whole month, I only bought two lattes, one because I was meeting a friend, and one because it was my boss's birthday. And our "just say no to non-essentials" policy meant we spent about $100 less on "miscellaneous" stuff than we usually do. To be honest, I don't feel like we deprived ourselves of anything or suffered through the month. It's a pretty good feeling. I'm hoping we can keep it up and hopefully make this yet another new lifestyle change that we don't even realize we're doing.

There is one aspect to all of this that shines out above all the others, and that's with all the new baby essentials. I've made my lists of what we need to have to be prepared for a new baby, and which items are conveniences instead of necessities, and have been expecting to spend quite a bit of our savings on baby stuff each month as we try to get all the essentials. What I wasn't quite expecting was just how generous people are, and how much the Lord would provide for us in this area. We've had a few people give us or lend us baby stuff that they no longer need, including clothes, diapers, a baby swing, a bouncer, a car seat, etc. Another friend has promised to help me with my sewing, and teach my how to make my own baby sling with fabric I already have (I cannot tell you how excited I am about this!) Add to that the generosity of friends and family with baby shower items, and we are getting fairly close to having everything we need for his first three months (and in some cases for the first year), without spending much at all. We have truly been blessed, and we know it!

So this has been quite the long rambly post that probably almost no one actually got all the way through, but there you have it. The moral of the story is that it's worth it to incorporate small changes into your life, and that they can indeed become great assets when they become second nature. The other moral of the story is that the Lord provides for our needs in ways we often don't even see at the time.