My Personal Economy

I try to listen to the news, and to read the paper once in a while, but I get scared when I hear that the economy will keep getting worse until next year, or the year after that, or the year after that. I hear one person's solution is another person's curse, and vice versa. I hear that I should spend, in order to save the economy.

I can't spend to save my country's economy. Here's why: I spent about fifteen years of my life spending, eating out twice a day (no lie), buying clothes and movie tickets on credit. I never saved a dime, except for what my employer put into my retirement account. It was a lot of fun, that life, although maybe not as much fun as it could have been. I could never seem to plan to use a large sum of money, because I never had that money. I was afraid to take out a big loan, because all my little loans were always on my back.

For better or worse, I will never live that way again. I'm not saying I never spend on personal entertainment, or that I only eat rice and beans. I don't sew my own clothes, nor do I grow a big vegetable garden. The fact is, though, that the way I spent in the 1990s is not possible for me now. I can't do it anymore. I desire to send my kids to private school, which is kind of like Home Economics 101 all by itself. I want to keep working at home. Therefore, I am gradually learning how to save instead of spend, and how to plan my spending.

I am very, very lucky to be able to send my kids to private school, to live in my own house, to have my own car, to have heat and electricity and clean water, a yard for the kids to play in, a safe town and county. I am very lucky that Brad has a good job. There is a great deal to be thankful for. I want to always feel lucky. Part of feeling lucky means, not wasting the day, not wasting money, not wasting time, not wasting my life.

I don't know what the larger economy will be like in three or five years; I assume it will get better with time, like a broken bone. If everyone across the country has changed their spending habits the way I hope I have done, then the economy will never be the way it was. Maybe that will be okay, not because we'll be better people (we won't be), but because, on an individual level, we'll be more financially secure. I hope so.