Living on One Income

by Crystal Paine

Lady Lydia has a very insightful post on Living on One Income on Homeliving Helper today.

She says: My answer [Regarding whether or not you can live on one income] is that if you try to do it, you can. I've never seen anyone who tried to do it and was determined enough, ending up living on the street, or sleeping under a bridge. They say "If I do this, it won't work," but most have never really tried it. I believe you have to work a plan before the plan will work, but most people want to live as they please and then add more income to their family so that they can just keep on living that way. If they start at the top, living the high life, it is a long way to fall if they get sick and can't work, and if you work your way up without debt, living frugally at first, you can stay at the top for a long time, with the security of savings, investments, and income.

That is our goal -- not to live a "high life" necessarily, but to live frugally now, to reap the results later. We have told ourselves this all through law school when things have been really tight at times and we had to forgo many luxuries and some things that most people consider to be "necessities" in order to stay afloat. It has been an interesting journey and there were times when we wondered if we were crazy to try and live on a part-time income and stay out of debt. But, God has been so faithful! Even in the littlest things like toilet paper. Yep, I said toilet paper.

You see, before we moved to the town we are living in for Jesse to begin law school (2 1/2 years ago), my mom and I went "Coupon-Shopping." (If you've never been coupon-shopping with my mom, you don't know how to shop. She can find the best deals and can get a cartload of groceries for pennies on the dollar or better. I'm not kidding!) The store was having Double-Dollar coupons and I have a coupon for $1 off this particular brand of toilet paper. The toilet paper was on sale for $1.99. It just so happens that my mom and I had both collected a whole lot of these coupons (around 25). So, yes, you guessed it, I got 25 packages of double-roll toilet paper for free. We still haven't used them all up. Just yesterday I was replacing the roll of toilet paper and mentioning to Jesse that we hadn't purchased toilet paper the entire time he's been in law school. Okay, so maybe this seems very insignificant, but it is just one small story of hundreds I could share of how God has provided for us so abundantly!

In another part of the article she says: Anything you spend, or charge, beyond your husband's income, will threaten your position as a homemaker. The more you spend, and the more you charge, the closer you are to having to go to work. If you really want to stay home, you can. There are many women who are doing it. Being a stay at home woman is not so much a matter of economy as it is of philosophy. To a large extent, your beliefs will rule your actions. So much of the time, people say "That will never work." I always like to say, "Have you tried?" If it is God's will, He will make a way!