then what can I live without?


I'm trying to hold onto this thought.

lol. that's a good one. where did you get that?

lol. that's a good one. where did you get that?

As a family we've been reading On the Banks of Plum Creek. A few weeks ago we read the chapter where Pa Ingalls walks 300 miles for work in boots that are patched. DH and I began asking ourselves why we create "needs" when it's not difficult to go without. It's not a matter of trying to deprive ourselves, it's just that there are so many things we don't truly want and certainly don't need but we buy those things.

DH and I began asking ourselves why we create "needs" when it's not difficult to go without. It's not a matter of trying to deprive ourselves, it's just that there are so many things we don't truly want and certainly don't need but we buy those things.

Like what? What are those specifically for you? I'm trying to think of mine...

But I think the reason we do create "needs" for ourselves is because our culture is set up for us to want want want and spend spend spend.

Like what? What are those specifically for you? I'm trying to think of mine...


Clothing for my kids, shoes for my kids. I want more than they need, though society would list their needs as more than what they truly are. You were talking about hand-me-downs in another thread- I wish we knew people for hand-me-downs! My kids pass on their clothes to extended family and friends. Tawnya recently sent some shirts for ds, that was a nice windfall for us, really!

Foods we don't need. Tea is not a necessity and it's not even good for me because of my kidney and thyroid issues. Ice cream is not a necessity. Juice is not a necessity.

Various educational things touted for teaching x,y and z when there are other free ways to teach them that seem to actually be more fun.

Books. Between the library and online I'm fairly covered. There are some things I can't find between the two so I skim the basics of those books at B&N now while the kids play with the train for free. :)

Things for my kids. Special treats, nice gifts. The silliest part is my husband does amazing woodworking, I do some woodworking & carving, sewing, needlework and for some reason I buy things... that doesn't make much sense. My kids aren't dazzled by storebought toys, they'd rather have a new vehicle that Dad made or a pillow from Mom for reading books on. Books are the one thing I can't make appear from scraps of this and that and they love books.

Yeah, these are pretty much the bugaboos for us as well.

I wish we knew people for hand-me-downs too! Looks like some Amity mamas are coming through for me. What size are your kids wearing? :) I may have some things for you, although we recently passed down tons to our friends. I've kept the cycle going...my friend brought me about 10 lb of Gevalia coffee beans when she came to visit, which helped me SO much as I can't afford decent coffee right now but love it. So, it came back to me in a different way, my generosity with hand me downs. (I've given her nice things, Hannas in decent shape, 2 pr of Duckies pants that I got for $4 ea at Kohl's on clearance, but are just wonderful sturdy boys' pants, yk? And lots of it.)

I have a hard time saying no to buying ice cream. We made a rule recently because it was out of control; we'll buy two containers of what's on sale when we go grocery shopping (usually it's a "buy 1 get 1" sale) and when it's gone - it's gone. My sense of limits w/food is completely out the window b/c of Jake's dietary needs - the nurse will say to me, "Let him eat as much ice cream as he wants!!" Sigh. Anyway, we only go grocery shopping (at the supermarket, I mean) once or twice a month, so that limits it naturally. No more in-between runs to the country store where it's 3.29 for a box of crappy ShurFine or 5.39 for a box of somewhat-less-crappy Hood brand.

Katie uses her own money now, to buy "treats" for herself. That's a relief.

With other food...for us juice is on the necessity list for Jake...I've tried withdrawing it hard-core, LOL, and he dehydrated before he would drink plain water. We've spent $$$ on flavored water beverages (the new kind sans Splenda or whatever) with no luck. So, I save the bottle from the previous juice and when I open a new one, it gets diluted into two bottles with water.

But, I feel "entitled" to shop at the co-op for a lot of things. Or to buy $20 of groceries to make a meal or fill out what we have in the pantry rather than go without. And then when we go to get the head of garlic or whatever we're out of, we inevitably spend $15 on things we could've done without. We need to pretend we're farther from a quick trip to the supermarket than we are, and do without or cook with what we have on hand, a lot more often.

We're reading On the Banks of Plum Creek right now too! We're at the part where they just built the house and are moving out of the dugout.

I just love the Little House books. They are such an inspiration to me. Whenever I start feeling like our house is too cramped or I don't have all the "stuff" I want, these books really bring home to me just how cluttered our lives are. I always wish I could have created an environment where our family could have just a few treasured items and be content with that instead of having the "gimmes" all the time. I guess even if I did everything right to foster that type of environment, our media saturated, materialistic society would probably be working against me.

Anyway, I feel the same way as you. Whenever I feel the urge to buy something, I always try to ask myself 'why do I want this and can I do without it?' And when push comes to shove, I find that there really isn't much that I truly need.

Tawnya recently sent some shirts for ds, that was a nice windfall for us, really!




I'm so glad you could use them because they were going off to the goodwill or yard sale pile. I came home from the hospital after one chemo round and my MIL had been here only one full day and she had taken my boys to Old Navy and bought them so many new shirts that they didn't need.... I just don't like my boys being a walking billboard for old navy....

Anyways- I have been really thinking about things we need vs. want. As we prepare to move from our big house to a little apartment while DH is away with the Army it really makes me look at each item and think? Will I have room for this? Is it worth paying to put in storage?

I think the above posters are right that society makes us feel bad or out of place because we don't want or need all these things.

My mom thought I was "weird" when I said that I wanted to cut down our dishes to just a set of six because I won't have the space in our new apartment to store a lot of things.

Tawnya


PS Does anyone need some medium/small cloth diapers? I have a good size bag here and I'm just too lazy to take picture and list them somewhere....

I think our biggest issue is learning to be content and happy without. Our society doesn't encourage it, quite the opposite. And it's HARD!! Even without watching a lot of TV, there's things I want. I can do without them. But I still want them. I'm trying to learn this lesson. I think it will help us tremendously.

It makes me think of the Duggers. They had how many people in a small house before they built their new one? And how many people criticize their clothing, etc. ?? But look at what they accomplished (well, with the help of good investments and a real estate career for dad) when they did without.

I think our biggest issue is learning to be content and happy without. Our society doesn't encourage it, quite the opposite. And it's HARD!! Even without watching a lot of TV, there's things I want. I can do without them. But I still want them. I'm trying to learn this lesson. I think it will help us tremendously.


Reading this makes me think about all the catalogs I get. I look through them and find tons of things that it normally wouldn't occur to me to buy. But as I look through the catalogs, I think 'oooh, wouldn't it be nice to have that' or 'you know, I could use that' or 'I reeeeaaallly want that' and so on. The same thing with shopping. I try never to go to a store without a purpose. If I window shop, I find myself wanting all sorts of things. And even if I don't buy them, I think they still reduce my quality of life because suddenly I find myself focused on what I don't have instead of feeling grateful for what I do have.

when i am focused on doing without, i do great not buying anything for myself or the house, although i often feel bad about not having anything cool to wear...uggg...so i still haven't beat the system there.

i have a hard time doing without clothes and shoes for ds. i *know* he has enough, but i still wish he had more, and i still look for "deals" throughout the season that are just unnecessary. juliebelle gave us a pair of shoes. why can't i be ok with one pair of shoes? it just seems like he should have one of every category of shoe. dd is still little, and even though she's a girl, i haven't found myself buying anything for her yet (she has hand me downs), thank goodness. but i figure it'll be hard later.

i have a hard time doing without certain food. i love to stop by somewhere and get myself a sweet tea. i feel like i deserve it, and it's only $1. i want to get special treats for ds. 3 cookies for $1 at subway, an ice cream cone here and there, a soy milk at barnes and noble, a special cookie at earth fare, a bag of animal crackers when he sees them at the store. uggg...it's everywhere, and we just don't need it. i KNOW i'm not depriving him of anything important if he doesn't have treats, but it's SO hard. especially b/c he's super sweet about it and is never throwing a fit for an ice cream or whatever he's asking for. i think i did a bad job of keeping him away from it in the first place so that he's not asking. darn it! i love dessert, and dh and i decided we would only eat popcorn (cheap and healthy) or fruit (healthy) after dinner at night. have we stuck to that? heck no. i feel deprived and end up buying ice cream or pudding or newman o's dipped in chocolate cool whip (why did i ever try that? :rolleyes:).

i have a hard time spending less money on gifts. i do ok, but i always go over a little. i had a mug, wahm soap, and incense...all things i paid nothing for...to give to a friend for her b-day. but it just didn't seem like quite enough, so i got a $5 card to earth fare. ok...lots of people would have spent more, but i just didn't need to/have the $5 to spend. i always do this.

the handle broke off of our van and it drives me crazy that it's hard to get dd in and out of the car, and i'm doing without there. that's a recent victory.

i NEED to be getting serious about doing without. thanks for the inspiration.

DH came back from his environmental science class this afternoon and said the teacher had talked about the four basic needs today:

1) Oxygen- 3 minutes
2) Shelter- 3 hours
3) Water- 3 days
4) Food- 3 weeks

The numbers behind them are how long you can go without. Obviously for shelter the number refers to inclement weather, heat/freezing.

I have all four needs covered. Anything else is a want. Clothing is law but I have plenty of that too. :)

Catalogs are bad. I am telling you what, just not opening catalogs or email spam.... a big helper.

https://www.dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailing to get off direct mail lists. I did this and I think another one that I found through the forums at organizedhome.com (it's a sticky there somewhere) and I no longer get unsolicited catalogs or credit card offers. It saves me so much time each day not to have to rifle through unwanted mail! Plus I'm not tempted to spend.

Also in the past month or two I've unsubscribed from every mailing list that subbed me, like for places I've bought stuff online, or whatever. Each time one of those lands in my inbox I just follow the link to unsub. It's decreased my daily emails by a lot (and freed up more time).

yes, catalogs are bad! Thanks for that link. Also I try to steer away from FS posts- unless I really need something.

Tawnya

For those who are Little House/Laura fans I call this philosophy "What Would Ma Do?"

I read all the books earlier this year, and am now reading the early ones to my boys (we're also at On the Banks of Plum Creek). When you really want ingenuity you read The Long Winter.

I have so much beyond our needs it is unfathomable, and it makes it hard to distinguish between wants and needs.

We have had fantastic luck with thrift stores lately, especially now that we know when SA has 1/2 price clothing, and also in general we know which store has lower prices on books, etc.

DH came back from his environmental science class this afternoon and said the teacher had talked about the four basic needs today:

1) Oxygen- 3 minutes
2) Shelter- 3 hours
3) Water- 3 days
4) Food- 3 weeks

The numbers behind them are how long you can go without. Obviously for shelter the number refers to inclement weather, heat/freezing.

I have all four needs covered. Anything else is a want. Clothing is law but I have plenty of that too. :)

one could go without food for 3 weeks? wow! :drop:

one could go without food for 3 weeks? wow! :drop:

tim fasted for 14 days before. he read up on it lots beforehand to know what to expect, etc.

I so needed to read this. I was about to place an order with Pottery Barn and JC Penney to refurnish our garage - make it into a family room.

Thanks, you saved me from having to explain a HUGE thing to dh.

awesome
just awesome

I think I need to crack open The Long Winter again. :) We just loved reading those together, Katie and I, a few years ago.

I'm so amazingly blessed. We have SO much. So very much. Too much, even - Kimberly, I like how you say it makes it hard to distinguish between wants and needs. I agree.

one could go without food for 3 weeks? wow! :drop:

yep. That's how long it took my grandmother to die once she decided she wasn't going to eat any longer.

Thanks for posting this. I try to be mindful but I get sucked in to desperately "needing" things that I could really do without. I think about Laura Ingalls and her family. They probably owned less than 100 things between the home and barn for all of them. Amazing. I can do with less. I haven't ever put it in this perspective, thanks.

I want to add another thought to this thread as well. Keep in mind that although Pa 'could' walk 300 miles in patched boots it was not the norm. IN that very same book you see the kids of the general store owner that 'have it all' and the girl party they threw and the all the stuff they had. Sometimes I will get caught up in the 'but back in the day' mentality or the 'but I have been trained by society to be materialistic' mentality and the reality is that its not all that different- its just accentuated. Pa and Ma desired nice things for their children, they desired comfort, they even had frivalous things (remember the 'whatnot' and the china shepherdess?). In fact in that same book (or maybe a different one) Pa gets way into debt expecting a great harvest that gets eaten by locusts. It is human nature to not want to be responsible for actions, to desire instant gratification and be prone to gluttany in all areas of life. It is a battle that is throughout all ages at least to some degree.

The difference for us?

The ability to get in a whole lot more trouble faster with the availability of credit. The ability to not 'have to' go without. The venue of marketing to gluttony in large scale. General store A can tempt the whole country at the same time as all the general stores as well- so its in our face more hours of the day, often by our own choosing since the general public pays for the newspaper, the internet/computers, the radios and like to 'go shopping'.

I think its important to gather wisdom from past ages, be challenged by thier abilitys and ideas, but also not take a victim mentality in regards to 'our culture/time'. It will ALWAYS be hard to deny the instant gratification in favor for the long term reward just as I'm sure it was difficult for Ma to watch her family get nearer and nearer to starvation before she chose the exact moment to pull out the hidden dried fish during the long winter. It was hard for Almonzo to keep the seed grain hidden from a town in hunger and then risk his life against the storm for what could be a wild goose chase to find more seed from a local claim shanty. Human nature would have said to pull it out at the first sign of hunger but wisdom says to dig deeper within yourself for patience or standing in the face of danger for something greater. Wisdom says to weigh the consequences before the action. Ma saw that one dried fish for what it really was in that situation- treasure both for the physical and the mental state of her family.

Sarah

Love this, Sarah. Makes so much sense to me. Glad you took the time to post it. :)

For me it's not about going without for the sake of denying something, I genuinely have to go without wants right now or my bills won't be paid. I've never not paid a bill (and I know I'm fortunate to say so) and I don't want to be in that situation.

I can remember dealing with the reposession man when I was 13 and our vehicle was taken and I can remember the notices for our house at the same age (lost that too) while my mom was concerned about her thousands of dollars in knick-knacks and antique replicas. Both of my parents have gone bankrupt twice- seperately. My MIL is the epitome of greed and DH grew up with that as his example. She's never had a penny in savings but has plenty of belongings to her name. She's miserable and greedier than ever, certainly no gem to be around. That's not what I want and it's not what I want my kids to learn.

Forcibly going without has shown me all of the things I can live without as well as what I really want to have. There are many things in life I can look at and say it would be nice to have, but I don't truly desire them. Desire is a few acres of my own that still have trees standing and life to them. My own and not the banks. There are wants and desires and they are very different for me.

DH and I have read the chapters where Pa says that they'll have such and such once the wheat is in and we hear the echo of things we've said before. That's painful. I don't want to ever be in the mindset of 'now I have money, what can I spend it on?'.

Nellie's family wound up losing everything. If they'd been more financially savvy and not had all of the conveniences possible, would they have been in the same situation? If we had an economic collapse now who would be prepared?

On top of my own monetary beliefs I cannot purchase things made by foreign labor knowing what that entails on an economic and environmental level. Far too many things are made overseas, greatly limiting what I feel comfortable purchasing.

When I ask "What would Ma do?" I am really thinking of her ingenuity and the pioneer spirit to make do with what you have. I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting nice things; I do believe that we have to take the entire chain into consideration and not have nice things at the expense of child labor, underpaid workers, unsafe working conditions, and the waste of natural resources.

I do think of Ma and her shepherdess. I think of how it was treasured, and of how many people I know who have curio cabinets of Hummel figurines and still want more. I think of how we collect things, and how the "high" comes from getting something new rather than from treasuring what we have.

I love that Laura writes about Pa putting things on credit, and I love that she shows that they had to sell everything and move to get out from under.

I think that the books show very nicely (as a fictionalized account, written much later) that people can delight in things like white sugar and tinned oysters. I like how Ma keeps things so nice even if she doesn't have much. I like that the children aren't jaded by so many material things.

I'm not one to really talk when it comes to frugality. We can always pay our bills, and we never have to choose between needs. Between wants, yes, but not between needs. We have more than we need, certainly, and more than I even want. But we have been deeply in debt. We have squandered money. We have gotten caught up in more, more, more. Simplicity and frugality have brought us to a place of true abundance in my eyes. I do it because I want to, not because I have to. I do it because I believe we have to think of the entire world and not just ourselves. I do it because I think hard times are coming and I want my children armed with resources such as problem solving, frugality, and concern for their fellow human beings.

I still find myself wanting nice things. Right now I would love to go to a furniture store and completely redo my family room. I step back, though, because I can't afford to do it without relying on cheap goods made with underpaid labor. So I remind myself that what I have will work, even if it isn't pretty, and if I am patient what I need will come to me piece by piece on the used or free market. I will make what I can.

Mocha latte creations from Starbucks or where ever... just to grande size drinks cost as much as a lg can of coffee I can enjoy all week!

I was thinking about Sarah's great post last night. I think it is true that there is the temptation to want and have more no matter what time period you are in. However, I do think that mass media has made it more difficult for us to avoid the "keeping up with the Joneses" mentality. We are constantly bombarded by what others have and what (according to the media and others) we should have. But still, you are right that we shouldn't fall victim to the whole idea that the media and others are solely to blame for materialism. We all make a choice about whether to be content with what we have.

And for me, that's one of the joys of reading about the Ingalls. They are so grateful for what they have. Laura is thrilled to have windows and a store bought broom. Instead of always looking for something bigger and better, the family seems truly happy and thankful for what they have. I wish that was something I could emulate better. Instead of being thankful for having a roof over my head and enough food to eat, I can easily fall into thinking that 'well, what I have is nice, but it would better if only I had....."

The other thing I love about the Ingalls is that they seem to use everything. I love that in the first book, they had a use for the whole pig they slaughtered. I love that Ma saved sheets to make curtains and paper to make stars on the shelves. It seems like nothing went to waste. They found a use and purpose for everything. And that is very refreshing to me when we seem to be such a throw-away society nowadays.

i really appreciate everyone's thoughts here and have been inspired by lots of what has been said. i do see where i can fall victim to..."if i grew up differently," "if we lived in another time," "if we were around different people," "if the media weren't the way it is," etc. i think it is all certainly true, but i still must take responsibility for my own thinking/actions. and i think about it all the time that i want my children to not have to work against how we brought them up if they decide they want to live a simple, frugal, healthy life.

We all make a choice about whether to be content with what we have.



Thanks. :) This is what I was trying to get at. I'm not going to run around town barefoot, sell my only vehicle and turn off the electricity but I need to look at things in terms of what can be left out of my life. I have it good. Some people aren't so fortunate.