Monday, February 23, 2009

What Credit Crisis? (Revisited)

What Credit Crisis? It's funny how everyone lately has been so glum about the Wallstreet mess. I joke with people all the time about how I have all of my money in Thom Mcann Shoes, literally, in a shoe in my closet! Well that's kind of an exaggeration too. I don't really have my savings in a shoe, but if I actually had any money to save I would keep it in my shoe. We already have been living very modestly and don't have any credit cards or loans or car payments (on the car issue, take a look at the beauty in the pic. 1989 Volvo 355,000 miles and running like a charm. Total cost for my transportation to work vehicle.......$700.00. Bought it over a year ago. Yes, we peeled 700 smackers out of the wallet and took her home). If we want something we save enough money to pay cash for it or we don't get it. We went through the "living too large for our own good" phase and got ourselves in trouble a while ago and decided it's time to live off the land and spend our time sitting on the front porch reading books to the kids instead of sitting in a movie theater every weekend to the toon of 50 or 60 bucks a pop. I got sick of hearing everyone complaining about the cost of this and that so I did something about it. I planted a garden and grew veges so we save a little on produce. We try our best to not drive across the bridge to save gas. We stopped going out to eat so much. We treat ourselves to a weekly crab feast, as long as I catch enough of the critters to feed Mary and Suzy(Vinni and I don't eat em we just catch em and watch the girls eat them, Correction: Vinni does like dipping claws in butter and sucking them clean). There's an old saying that goes The more you have, the more you you have to worry about losing. It's true! If you have fancy stuff all over the place and sweet cars in the driveway, you are always worried about someone taking it or scratching it. Get rid of all the fancy stuff and you won't believe how refreshing it is to not worry about someone taking stuff or scratching stuff. Another thing we have learned about getting back to basics, take notice the next time there is an electrical outage. Notice how much fun the kids seem to have when you take away the most important utility that we need. I don't know about your kids but ours love running around finding candles and finding a board game or cards to play with. We end up sitting in the family room all together talking and laughing. No TV blasting, no computer chatting, just enjoying being together. Those are the times the kids like the most. When they have the least! Try it next time, you'll be surprised. This is Vince signing out. AJournalist once asked Mother Theresa "what can each of us do to make a difference in this world, with all of the poverty and sadness. She replied, go home and love your family. Love begins by taking care of the closest ones - the ones at home. The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.

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