Our Frugal Lifestyle

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Passionate about eco-frugality. I used to party hard, clubbing my way from pay-packet to pay-packet. Never getting ahead, just getting by. Then came our much wanted baby with no savings in the bank - only an old car. Changes were made to our lifestyle and we didn't turn back. In the past 6yrs we purchased a flat, found employment, lived below our means, built an emergency fund, purchased a reliable car and saw the financial benefits of our frugal lifestyle. Our only debt is our mortgage. Our aim is to manage our cash flow wisely, pay off our home quickly and eventually work for pleasure, not necessity. Join us on our journey, share insights, tips and tricks to help us and others to get ahead while having a good time.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Sigh of Relief

As my partner works in a new position he has found for the next five months I sigh with relief. A relief for the pay that will come through the door and join mine to keep paying the mortgage, the food, the bills.

We are not poor. We are not wealthy. We are alright - we have saved hard for the past six years, we have spent wisely most days, we have budgeted and not lived on credit. Except for our home... We have a mortgage. A small one. A small flat - but the city we live in is expensive. We aimed to pay it off in five years but that was not achieved. I think another year and it should be paid off. I really should sit down and crunch numbers. Another job to add to my To Do List. A list with no end in sight.

I think once the mortgage is paid off I will feel more liberated. More free to do as I wish. Not buying more, but cutting back work hours and spending more time reading, laughing, cooking, gardening, sewing, thinking, learning, creating and playing. My partners job loss was another lesson learned in our life journey. He was in a secure stable permanent position. Or so I thought. But it wasn't so. He lost it as the new political party took the reins. He became angry and he became sad. He loved his job - he had passion about it. He went to work each day with a skip. I hope that his smile and energy will return, that he will not let the system drag him down.

Sadness and anger sapped our energy. Our home became a mess. We spent too much time doing nothing. Nothing can be good, but when nothing is destructive it's a sickness that grows and becomes too hard to battle. We are fighting it. We worked on the mundane to commence. We cleaned out the fridge together, as a family, the three of us. We purged the old and unhealthy. We filled it's gleaming insides with fresh healthier food choices. We ate a meal made with thought. We tackled our laundry, the mountain was reduced to mere rubble and we have spoken with more consideration to each other and our daughter. The stresses had strained us all, until our voices could no longer speak with calm or gentleness. We are now mending, cleansing and restoring our home and ourselves after six months of disillusionment and uncertainty. I never imagined that job loss could affect my family so deeply this way. But it did and now I have new experiences and wisdom to draw on when the going gets tough.

Stephanie @ Frugal Down Under.

8 comments:

  1. Hi FDU, I totally relate to your experience. We were in a very similar situation a few years ago, it completely consumes your life. I hope things will get better for you now. The new job gives the opportunity to learn new things, meet new people and that could bring new possibilities. Good Luck and wishing you all the best , MPB xx

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    1. Thank you Ms Piggy Bank for your kind words. It does consume you. More so than I thought. Each day was an exhausting worry.

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  2. Great news - and you really have positioned yourselves for paying off that mortgage now. We are recently mortgage free and living the frugal life, saving for things we want to spend money on versus have to. Very happy for you about his new employment.

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    1. I need to find a few moments alone with him to crunch numbers - a hard thing to do with a chatterbox daughter who likes to always be in the same room as us.

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  3. You should have learned a lesson from this: your life and family are more fragile than you thought. It seems you let things disintegrate when his work was gone. I have been on your end of disruption of job security. However, my goal was to maintain what I could maintain--housework, laundry, etc. I had a friend who had been in school working on PhD and held a job. She said that when she did not work for a summer, she tackled housework with a vengeance, that she was overly concerned. So, I was not the perfect person who can keep house during a disruption. It just takes putting your mind to trying to stabilize life and retain normalcy. While he is working, the two of you can discuss this catastrophe that happened to you and how you will tackle it the next time. It is better to be prepared and hope nothing happens just as you prepare for other sad eventualities that you hope will never happen.

    Actually, he could have been keeping the house in order while you worked.

    I was fired from a job at 7:45 one morning. I arrived home at 8:45 and was on the phone before 9 am. I was applying for all the public assistance I could, not jobs. I spent the day in a vengeance, trying to work myself to distraction. By dark, my house was immaculate. Keeping my house and laundry in order was my way to keep my life normal.

    Sorry, but I did not mean to jump on you. But, it sounded like the fabric of your life was rent. Talk about "what if" so the next time you will survive in better conditions.

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    1. Hi Practical - He wasn't out of a job yet, he lost his position in December, however due to policies and a union who worked hard for him... he was still going to work each day. The final day of work was coming up next month. 800 people lost their positions in my small city and he is specialised with 30 years experience in his field. So he went to work each day without the skip anymore and after work we would try to network, find solutions and apply for jobs. It was exhausting and demoralising as everyone else was applying for jobs, loosing jobs and leaving town. For us the hardest thing was the uncertainty of deciding should we move to another Australian state or going back to France. We just didn't have much more motivation then going through the motions of going to work each day and only doing the very basics at home. We are ahead in our mortgage but I felt if it was 100% paid off the anxiety may have been greatly reduced.

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  4. Wise words FDU! Like Miss Piggy Bank, I was recently in a similar situation, and you have summed up how I felt at the time perfectly. I really hope your partners job is everything he has dreamed of, and that you guys are getting closer and closer to your goal of living mortgage free!

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  5. Thanks Anon I tried to write from my heart :) We've never been in a work worry situation before as we were go lucky people and willing to move anywhere. Having a child has changed the game of life for us - we want financial and living stability. We have never felt down like we did in the last 6 months. It really ate away at us. It was hard to find the joyful stress free moments so we became more and more exhausted and didn't do much home maintenance.

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Thanks for commenting - I love getting feedback, sharing experiences and learning from you.