Society Saddens Me...

Posted on Sunday, October 1, 2006 at 03:01

I have been pondering alot lately about my families financial situation. In a nutshell, we are broke. I mean BROKE broke. Not just oh, well we are scraping the bottom of the barrel, but we had an income of $1000.00 in the last three months for a family of 5 kinda broke. There are extenuating circumstances that are causing my husband or I the ability to work and we are frequently having to fight with the local welfare offices for continued support. We stuck it out for 6 months before finally admitting, to a degree, defeat and asking for financial assistance. We have been blessed that we followed our Prophets admonishions about storing a years worth of food and have been living off of that for many many months. We are now down to our freezer stock and yesterday, we cleared out the chest freezer and inventorized the entire contents along with the contents of the upright freezer and merged the two together. I now have a database that enables me to quickly and easily see exactly what foods we have on hand and prepare my weekly menu plans from it. We rely on the food bank for canned goods and purchase milk, eggs and bread whenever we are able to do so. Things have been hard and stressful but we are making our way through and count on Heavenly Fathers wisdom and our faith to get us through this time in our lives. We have lost nearly everything... one of our vehicles, my husbands ability to work, our mental stability (both DH and I are on approximatly 800.00 a month in medications), our peace of mind and we are in the process of selling our home in the hope that we will be able to move to our other house, as the mortgage there is 400.00 less a month than it is here. As a result of our immediate need for frugality, we are finding ourselves embracing more and more a homemade lifestyle that we had always talked about but didn't ever get around to doing as money was rarely a concern and so living more frugally not an immediate necessity. Now however, it is.

My need for a more frugal lifestyle and the ability to make more items homemade rather than store bought has led me to internet searches for others like me... and I find it almost disconcerting that many of the places I am finding assistance and inspiration are, by their own definition, "old fashioned". When did we, as a society (and obviously I was guilty of this as well) so obsessive with the quick, the packaged and the popular that we have managed to classify anything and anyone that is "homemade" as old fashioned? Certainly there are some things that I simply cannot make for as cheaply as I can purchase it but the majority of items that I need and use in my home can easily be homemade. The role of a woman within the home, caring for her family is not, by my estimation anything LIKE being "old fashioned".

Ask the soccer moms and the homeschoolers who are forever shuttling their offspring to one lesson or another whether or not their "job" is old fashioned. Perhaps we are the up and coming trend in homemakers... those we are working our way back to a more reasonable lifestyle, one with homemade goods that we can be certain won't pickle our childrens internal organs or have them reach puberty before the age of 11. We live in a society where medications are ceasing to work in certain individuals because of overuse. Every where on the news we hear more and more about global warming and the environment. People are being admonished to recycle and reuse lest they continue to murder the planet that we live on. The prophet of our church admonishes us to remember that we are the chosen ones to live in this, the last dispensation. I can't turn on the news with my children in the room because there isn't a blessed thing on there that I wouldn't feel completely uncomfortable with them watching, not to mention the fact that we don't allow them to watch "normal" tv without carefully scrutinizing what the show is, whether or not there is swearing and alternative lifestyle references contained within it.

I am far from being the "old fashioned" woman that I want to be... its a daily struggle. Sometimes, I want to spirit my family and others off in a re-enactment of "The Village" and live off the grid in a time so much simpler than our own. Certainly I am not about to go off and build myself a butter churn (although with three young, healthy daughters to churn the stuff, its something that I may consider in the future) nor am I willing to get rid of my computer (heaven forbid!) or my microwave but becoming determined to live a healthier, more old fashioned lifestyle is far from out of the question and I am taking my baby steps. We line dry our laundry whenever possible. We are working on making our own food at home all of the time rather than purchasing boxed meals.

If someone wants to call me "old fashioned" well, I suppose I will just have to nod and smile and say "Yep. Isnt it great?" but in my heart I know that we are indeed the way of the future because someday, somehow people as a whole are going to have to wake up and realize that for the majority of us we are not going to be able to function if anything were to happen to remove all of our ability to just pop on over the fast food restaurant or the grocery store for something to eat. Heaven forbid that we ever lived through a war on our country because I would imagine that some of us (myself included) would very well be lost as to how to survive and provide for ourselves unless it was all prepacked in a nice, handy dandy box.

old fashioned

Posted by Anonymous on Monday, October 2, 2006 at 06:45 - Link

I am sorry to hear about your family's struggles. We've been like that for 2 1/2 yrs now... we were just coming out of it when my husband's boss sold the territory he was working, with the promise that when we moved he'd help with moving costs... well, long story short when my husband showed up with receipts to ask for help... he told him to look for a part time job. So we were forced to look for a job with even LESS pay... sigh. So here we are scrambling to make it work. But it will - I have confidence. I thought it was interesting when the brethern spoke on honesty in the workplace - it's been a long time since my husband has had an employer who was honest and had integrity.

That being said... I hope you found the Friendly Freezer and the yahoo group by them. Her ivory laundry soap works AMAZINGLY and is SOOO cheap & easy to make! On the yahoo group, there are women there who can really help being frugal. There is another yahoo group called 4on4 - Jo has done a FABULOUS job teaching people to live on nothing - her group is called 4on4 meaning, feeding four people on four dollars a day. And she does it VERY WELL.

Other than those reccomendations, I guess I can't help much, but SO wish I could. Big hugs - it will get better... we just have to endure till it does. As for your old fashioned comments... those made me laugh. I never thought of myself as old fashioned, but a FORWARD THINKER - thinking about the mellinium that is. :)

oops

Posted by Anonymous on Monday, October 2, 2006 at 06:46 - Link

sorry - I keep forgetting this isn't homeschool blogger - it's the same format. Forgive me.

Texasblu

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Posted by Tinakay on Tuesday, October 3, 2006 at 05:32 - Link

I am disappointed with society also. It is not a vularity to be a homemaker. I love it. My in-laws do not agree. They expect us to have lots of material things. We do not want them in the first place, but we are expected to have them. Doesn't make sense. And if me homesteading or being a homemaker makes me "old fashioned" so be it. I am "OLD FASHIONED!" lol I hope all gets better with you. I am sorry to hear of your struggles.
Tina Kay