More How to Save Money

This is more from Linda Jett on how to save money. I did not write it but am sharing it. Please keep in mind as you read this that *I did not write it* and *you won't agree with every single thing in it*. That said enjoy!!
How To Save Money Part 2

Eat sensibly! Eat more reasonably priced foods. Get off of the ridiculously priced foods and eat plainer, which is more healthy anyway! Try to see just how much nutrition you can find for your family for a month. At the same time try to see if you can cut the family food budget in half and then in quarter. I can assure you that most of you can do that, still have money left over AND have yummy satisfying meals that keep your family content because their nutritional needs have been met and they are satisfied. Women today are spending "their husbands time and money away" on foolish menus! Plain "country" food eaters are usually healthier eaters and seldom have large food budgets. The children also learn from infants to eat all the foods put onto the table. Picky eaters are expensive eaters and often fail to get good nutrition. How many folks do I hear "I don’t like that" but have failed to ever try to eat it! Quite often! But, how surprised they are as they try the required "spoon of everything" at our table. Plus remember, our taste buds change throughout the years and just because we didn’t like it several years ago doesn’t mean we wouldn’t like it now. You can also acquire a taste for foods by taking a bit of it for 21 days. Just like "it takes 21 days to change a habit", twenty-one days can acquire a new taste.

Grow some food.! The virtuous woman did and she fed her family well, got exercise, fresh air, satisfaction from working with the earth, and was well rewarded with the delicious, fresh food she had for her family. Her budget did exceedingly well from her labors!

"Work" instead of "work out establishments"! Work is fruitful, useful and God-instructed. "Work out establishments" are a costly way of doing things instead of more strenuous work that can benefit yourself and others. Why would we pay to work hard and almost abuse ourselves when we can "almost abuse ourselves" by doing harder, productive work that can be fruitful and even sleep well from it? Children who need these facilities are wasted assets. They can be given labor-intensive work to take the place of paying someone to "tone up" the body. I had boy cousins who did push mowing of several acres, hay field work, hoeing, fencing, working cattle, loading watermelon trucks to take the melons to market, and more and they were "toned up", muscular, healthy boys! They ate the fruits of their labors and were healthy and ruddy faced as the shepherd David. It is our fault today that we, and our children, are soft, flabby, and need somewhere to work out because we have become unfruitful and undisciplined. We need someone to make us "work out" or someone to pay, so we feel compelled to do what we are not disciplined enough to do ourselves. The woman who feels the need to go somewhere to "work out" has never read all of the requirements for the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31. Where would she ever find the time? Besides in her list of "to do" it says "She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms." Proverbs 31:17. Have trouble sleeping? Work harder! It is a wonderful cure for sleepless nights!

Learn to take care of your family yourself! Doctors used to be for emergencies. They used to fix bones or sew folks up. They were for life and death situations. Today they are the one the family sees until they are almost first name basis. Women used to pass on to their daughters how to take care of their families health and needs. There was not the constant doctor bills that folks live with today. With the vast amount of books, internet and other materials there is little excuse for not trying to get back to caring for our own families and saving the expense of minor medical bills for those things that are major.

Go to bed earlier – work better, save utilities! People who truly put in a WORKday are ready to go to bed earlier. They eat less, snack less and use less electricity. They don’t need so much to entertain them because they don’t sit around long hours, thus they don’t spend so much for entertainment or go so much.

Have only one car! Families who have only one car pay insurance for only one. The wife stays home more. They save in gasoline, more home prepared meals, they have time to take care of the home and family better. They have time to grow some food to eat, make their own clothes. They become fruitful rather than "running the roads." The more they can run the roads, the more they can shop. When I was a girl each family (hopefully) had one car. Once a week one woman among neighbors or friends would take her husband to work for the day, or after lunch, and they would "car pool" going to the grocery store for the week’s groceries. Children held sacks, floorboards were full, the trunk was full, but they didn’t pay for an extra car, they didn’t pay for child care, they shared the gas, oil, and tire expenditures! Plus, they only went to the grocery store ONCE a week. Some families did only once a month shopping. Too many cars also encourage the family to be involved in too many things, clubs, circles, etc.! It is such an easier thing to be "a keeper at home" without the temptation of a second car. I haven’t driven in years and it hasn’t hurt us a bit. Only saved!

Wear your clothes until they are dirty or smelly! Too many people wash their clothes to death. If clothes are not dirty, stained or smelly they need to be reused. Often hanging something out to freshen in the sunshine for an hour will do wonders for things that still look clean. You save on the clothes that you are washing to death. You save on the washing machine, water, dryer, utilities, cleaners and TIME.

Use plainer soaps and cleaners! The internet is full of a world of homemade soaps and cleaners. Women pay many dollars for what simple vinegar, baking soda, ammonia or soap and water can do! The laundry soap recipe we have sent out for years and included into Volume II of "The Virtuous Woman" works great and costs about 1-2 cents per load, depending on the size of machine and loads you have. Most folks could save a lot on soaps and cleaners if they would but learn that soft water uses about half the amount called for in directions! Many of you have damaged glassware from the dishwasher from using too much soap. Some have clothes that are not lasting because there is too much soap built up in the fabrics or the washers are breaking down because of too much soap build up!

Get out of all of the clubs and "circles"! These use your time, energy, family togetherness and training time, apply more pressure for "fitting in" and having what others have. They encourage the family to be on the road and usually into fruitless time consumption. They have become excuses for dirty homes, needs for eat outs, more cars, and worse yet, baby-sitters! Invest your life more into everlasting investments. Many meetings or gatherings may seem worthwhile, but you really need to analyze these much more carefully in eternal worth and welfare. The Virtuous Woman in Proverbs 31 is not busy deserting her household responsibilities or gadding about even from one church event to the next all week long. Ina Painter says in her article "Sanctification of a Slob": " Look at what the Virtuous Woman does not do. She is not running here and there, giving the gospel or gadding about from spiritual group to spiritual group, ever learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth."

Jill Cooper also states in her article "Are We Depriving Our Kids?" "We have come to believe that moms should work outside the home so that children can have the most expensive clothes, education or material things. (Note I didn’t say best but rather most expensive since the most expensive doesn’t mean the best.) If a mom goes to work so a child can have all those things it’s not considered depriving the child of anything but it’s mom. Which do you think does a child more harm--being deprived expensive things or it’s mom? For you stay at home moms: Before you become too puffed up with pride be aware that too many social, church and school activities can deprive your children of you just as much as working. Do all things in moderation. Better to give your kids your values you have than the valuables you can't afford."

This is so true, I used to be at the church every time the doors opened until one day I stopped and looked to see that most of it was only "busy work"! I neglected my children, husband and home to be "busy"! When the Lord wants to use me He actually sends those in need straight to my door, phone or wherever I am! The Lord has so few volunteers He will send those in need to anyone, anywhere who yields themselves to be used! Just start the day with "Here am I Lord, use me!"

Learn more skills! How much more could be done, and even the spending thereof saved, if only we would develop more skills to do things for ourselves. How many hands are wasted within the home by just "letting children be children" as is the new saying today? Their hands could be learning skills and trades for the future and could be benefitting the family now (as well as into the future when the family can all be helping one another with each other’s skills!)