a new direction

It’s time for a change.   I’m taking this blog in a new direction away from frugal & cheap decorating tips to a more green, sustainable, frugal way of living.  I’ve been thinking on this for some time (as many of you can see from my lack of posts).  And now is the time to start making that change. 

It’s not that I don’t love decorating.  I love making things pretty and organized.  And if I can do it for cheap, even better!  It’s a rush!  But I noticed that I was spending more and more time worrying about a new project or how to squeeze a couple more dollars into the new project.  It became a worry and a stress and took away from the most important part of my life – my family.  When I look back on my life I know I won’t think about how well decorated my house was, but about the time I spent with my husband and my kids.

We live on one income.  Right now Steve is the breadwinner and I am the student.  These roles will switch once I complete my education and Steve goes back to school.  We will be living on one income with student expenses and daycare expenses for the next several years.  Fitting decorating projects into this just doesn’t seem feasible or responsible.  Not to say I won’t have the urge and occasionally paint something or reorganize something (in fact, I’ll probably reorganize a lot as I am always looking for ways to make things more efficient), but big, unnecessary projects are a thing of the past.  *I hear my husband thanking God at work 30 miles away.*

I don’t consider us rich by American standards, but we by world standards we are rich.  We are in the top 2% of income.  We have SO MUCH!  We, as a family, as a society, need to start living on less.  We are going to start making this transition.  It will be a slow transition, but a transition nonetheless.  It helps that a lot of the changes we will make will not only lessen our environmental impact, but also our expenses.  Our family has lots of debt to pay down (credit card, student loans, car loan, mortgage).   It’s time that we live more within our means, pay down our debt, and live with less. 

Along with this, Steve has been asking for years that we become more prepared for a disaster.  He has volunteered his time with the Red Cross in multiple areas and knows how important it is to be prepared.  I’ve been putting this off as an extra expense.  I no longer see it as an extra expense.  It is a necessity.  We will be faced with some disaster at some point, be it natural disaster, economic disaster, job loss (which happened to us in 2011).  Being prepared is responsible and necessary.

I hope you follow along with this new journey!