One Small Decision, A Family Tradition, and Saving Almost $500 Each Year

A few years ago when our family moved to Nashville we made a very hard decision. You see, we were barely 30 years old. We had realized early on in our marriage that living in perpetual debt was not for us. We had paid off a relatively small student loan and we had paid off our car. Then we did this little thing called adoption and found ourselves in debt again, along with another car payment.

We were tired. We had two children under the age of 3, with their futures in our very hands and we were determined to put an end to paycheck-to-paycheck living. We wanted to start saving some money.

We finally began to understand that if we wanted our lives to look different, we had to start living differently. What a concept.

A Couple of Big Changes

We made some big changes. One was to refrain from car payments. This is no small thing, because we had one car at the time, in Nashville, and we lived 15 minutes from the church building where Adam worked. We knew we needed another car. It would have been easy to go buy a car and have a “small” $200 car payment. We were serious, though, and decided that one good car was enough. We bought an old car that Adam could use traveling back and forth from work. I love my husband for many reasons. One of which is that he was willing to drive a car without heat, air, and a radio during that time.

This was also about the time we decided to turn off our cable. That decision wasn’t only about money, but the $70 monthly bill sure wasn’t winning us over. That decision truly transformed our family. We were forced to think of other things to do. As our children grew older, they also were forced to think of other things to do. Television shows and movies became a treat and a decision; not a default. These were some big changes we made, but there was also a small decision that really made an impact on our family.

The Small Change with Big Impact

We found out that controlling our spending was a lot harder in Nashville where there were approximately 30 billion restaurants (and it seemed that about 10 billion of them were on our drive home from worship).

We noticed a pattern every Sunday morning. After worship, all of our friends would start making plans about where to eat lunch. Inevitably, our friends would invite us along. We would go along for a couple of reasons. First, we didn’t want to be impolite. Second, I didn’t have anything already prepared back at home.

We knew this would be a problem. After all, even as young as our kids were then, we were spending at least $80 each month for Sunday lunch. That may not seem like a lot to you, but to us at that time that was a lot of money.

So, we made a plan. We decided to start making our own Sunday lunch. I knew myself well enough to know that in order for this plan to work, Sunday lunch needed to be “in the oven” before we headed to worship. It was during this time that I learned how to roast a chicken, which, by the way, is very easy. I also got pretty good at cooking a roast. We figured that all told, we could eat for around $10 at home, when you consider the leftover meat and broth. In addition, we almost always had Sunday night sandwiches taken care of from the leftovers.

We began inviting other families over to eat with us because we knew that Sunday dinner is a great time to visit with other young families who would otherwise be too busy during the week.

I know that others say that the expense of eating out is worth it because they are visiting with other families. Well, we were visiting with other families too, and in addition, we were building a wonderful tradition of a nice Sunday dinner every week.

Plus…we had around $40 dollars extra a month!

What $40 Each Month Could Mean

Now, I know that saving $40 a month might not seem worth it to some people, but I want to encourage you to look at what $40 dollars could do for your family.

For that same $40, you could order a subscription to “Discovery” magazine for your child and order every Apologetics Press “Learn to Read” or “Advanced Reader” series of books and still have at least $12 left over.

Or you could order a one-year subscription to Gospel Advocate and Christian Woman magazines with a couple of dollars still in your pocket.

If you are not in the buying mood, you could give $40 more dollars to the work of the Lord or you could pay off S40 of your debt that month. Do the math and that little change adds up to almost $500 in one year’s time.

Conclusion

You see, a small change in your life can have big effects. The obvious is financial, but as you can see, we got much more than a financial benefit from this small change in our life.

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AUTHOR: Leah Faughn