Patience, Peace of Mind and Living Within Your Means

Ours was a humble house, and that suited us fine.  There was nothing spectacular about us anyway.  But it was small, and we were very nearly big.
Its yard was pretty average for size, but we had made it into our own little garden of Eden.  We made every inch count – both in the house and in the yard.  A grassy area for the kids to play and a picnic table. A swing set for the littles.  A trampoline we delivered flyers for two years to buy.  A vegetable garden bordered by raspberries.  A sizable strawberry patch. High bush cranberries, rhubarb, apple trees, a shady area with a hammock.  And of course, my herb garden.  And flowers.  How can I live without flowers?
Dan had built me a greenhouse.  Which I loved.  Many happy hours were spent in it. … But again, our house was small. …  In the warm months we spent a lot of time in the yard so it wasn’t as noticeable.  But you probably know in Edmonton, there are plenty of non-warm months.  

Before our last was born we anxiously looked for a bigger home.   We thought we found one.   Even made an offer.   It didn’t work out.   Over the next few years, from time to time we picked up the torch again and seriously looked, even made a couple of half hearted offers. Nothing ever worked out and it was just as well.   I thought “it would have to be absolutely everything we want and need to justify leaving”.   Even though our house was tiny, every corner had been made usable.   Sometimes I would stand in the backyard and wonder “how can we ever leave this?” …. Then one day as I stood in the yard, gazing at our little corner-of-heaven-with-a-fence-around-it, a new thought entered my mind. “We made this!  It was nothing more than an empty square yard with a little lonely apple tree smack-dab in the middle of it.   ALL this we made.   We cannot take it with us, but we can do it again.  Whatever we did here we can do anywhere.”   I knew then that we had permission to go.    And I knew just as certainly, that the right opportunity would present itself.   We would simply have to watch for it.   And wait.

Soon enough, a friend phoned one day to say their neighbour was putting their house on the market the very next day.   It had a big yard.   They thought we’d be interested.   We walked over to scout it out that evening.   It was only a few blocks away.   Nice.   The kids wouldn’t have to change schools.   In a crescent.   Nice.   The house was bigger than ours.  Hard to say how much, but enough.   We walked down the alley and peeked in the fence.  Rough back yard.   With a dead car parked in it.   But big.  With good DNA.   It smiled at us.   It wanted us.   It needed us.   And we listened.   We went home and phoned another friend.   A real estate agent.   We told him “a house is going on the market tomorrow.   We want it.”   By 10:00 the next night we owned it.   Two months later we moved in.  Our fifth child (that baby), had just turned nine!

Sometimes we need to be patient.   When we feel gratitude for our blessings, when we can “name them one by one” as the song goes, when we can be truly happy in our circumstances such as they are, when we beautify our own little corner of the world to the best of our ability, and when we can do all that continuing to live within our means, then really — nothing else matters does it?   But when the right opportunity presents itself and calls you by name, you know it is time to act.   Time to take the steps necessary to make a change.   That doesn’t make it easy.   It only makes it feel right.   And then the rest?   Well, you simply make it work.
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Admittedly, it took a long time before our new home earned the title ‘home’ in our hearts.  Homes are made of memories and memories take a while to collect.   The house we raised our five children in for twelve years was only 960 square feet.   Small by any standards.   But love thrives in small houses as well as it does in bigger ones.   In the end, it was a good move.   Best one we could have ever made I believe.   We kept all our old friends.   The kids all stayed in the same school.   While we left some fabulous neighbours, we found new ones.

It took us a few years of experimenting before we figured out what we wanted to do with our yards front and back.   Heck, it took two years just to get rid of the thistle in the lawn so that we could walk barefoot on it.   We followed a pattern that we had established many years before, when we bought our first home (a fixer upper).   That pattern?   To complete two major household projects a year: one inside and one outside.   As we could afford them.   The inside one is generally tackled somewhere between October and April.   The outside one is taken care of in the warmer months.   Some projects are big, like removing walls and laying hardwood flooring, redoing the kitchen or putting in a bathroom.   Some projects are smaller like replacing a single window or painting a room.   All must be affordable.   And by that, I mean something we don’t have to borrow money for.   The final determining factor on ‘what’ and ‘when’ is whether we can pay for it right now.

We live by the adage that debt should be avoided like we would avoid the plague.   Buying a house requires long term debt of course, but we had learned through hard experience that just because one qualifies for a loan with relative ease, shouldn’t be the excuse we use to live beyond our means.   What is “our means”?   It is what we can afford to pay for, while still paying an honest tithing, and putting aside a little extra for rainy days.   Our debt philosophy is very straight forward and simple, but one that we live strictly by – “if we can’t afford to pay for it now, we cannot afford it.”

Experience has taught us that although ‘Saving up’ and ‘paying off’, may eventually arrive at the same end, they take entirely different  routes to get there.   Saving up – means YOU are in control.   You are the master.   Paying off – gives you the illusion of being in control, but until the debt is cleared, you are never the master.    You are always the servant, because interest never sleeps.   It doesn’t go on vacation, it doesn’t get sick and take a day off, and it has no compassion.   It does what it was created to do – add upon itself.   That is the one thing you can count on.   At the risk of sounding naively simplistic – it is really a matter of learning to manage your money, before your money (or lack of it) manages you.   Without a plan, one too often finds that purchases have nothing to do with whether one can afford them, but are justified because one feels entitled to them, or at the very least, one deserves them.   Those reasons may feel good at the time, but they create a situation of dependence, not independence.   Self sufficiency can never be obtained as long as serious debt hangs over a household.

Living within our means, implies that we don’t buy what we cannot afford.   “One step at a time – slow and steady wins the race – by small and simple things great things come to pass” – and all other such pieces of wisdom of the ages cannot be wrong.   

Part of the Homesteading lifestyle is living within your means and never putting oneself into unnecessary debt.   Strict adherence to this principle teaches patience and many other skills, but its greatest benefit is the blessing of peace of mind.  And there is no price tag on peace of mind.  

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the principles discussed here.

Warmly,

Cindy Suelzle