I thought I
would try to actually do a weekly blog post.
I know in the past I usually have just done a post when I have something
particular to share, like a successfully completed project, progress on a goal,
a delicious recipe, et cetera. But there
are often times that I have no successes to share, or even failures. There are weeks when all I’ve accomplished is
just another successful week of life. I
suppose that’s really not something to sneer at, huh? I mean, if I hadn’t managed to do that much,
I’d be dead, so here’s to another week alive! *holds up her mason jar of sweet
tea in salute*
I know I'll probably forget, because good intentions have a way of getting derailed by life's interventions, but today I do
actually have something on my mind.
Wants versus needs. Folks are
clamoring for higher minimum wage, because they just can’t seem to live on what
they earn. Then when they get the higher
minimum wages, prices go up, hours get cut, benefits suffer, and they still
can’t live on what they earn. You know
what the problem is? No one taught them
how to live on what they earn.
We’ve gone
from a culture where it was shame and dishonor on a family to be on the dole to
a culture that considers it some kind of a mark of pride to exploit the system
and get as much as they can out of it.
I’m of the old-school mindset.
I’ve never been on food stamps or welfare or any form of government
assistance other than a year and a half on WIC while my son was eating us out
of house and home in baby food. And do
you know my conscience ate me alive every time I used that card? I felt like I was stealing. As soon as he started eating solids, I quit
redeeming the vouchers.
Folks say they
can’t live on minimum wage, but the thing is folks just don’t know how to make
do. I lost count of how many times
someone expressed surprise that a dish or dessert I sent with my husband to
some function or other was homemade. It
was astounding to some of them, like it never occurred to them that *somebody*
had to make the dish from scratch before it became a prefab convenience item in
the grocery store’s freezer or boxed on the shelf.
Do you know
what the average cost of a loaf of bread in the USA is? According to Google, it’s around $2.37. Do you know how much it costs to make a
simple bread recipe? About 50 to 75
cents, and that’s two standard loaves. Folks
will say, “But it takes too long.” No,
it doesn’t take that long. I have an
excellent on-demand recipe that takes five minutes to throw together. Let it rise two hours, stick it in the
fridge, and pull off a lump to bake whenever you want it. I’ve smooshed it out into sandwich rounds
that take 10-15 minutes to bake and make wonderful lunches. Time is what you make of it.
But learning
to cook and saving on groceries is only part of it. We’ve become such an instant gratification
society that folks mistake their wants with needs. Do we need Internet? Some would argue yes, because so much
nowadays demands that we have access to the Internet. We can’t even get our Tricare information in
paper form anymore. We have to go online
and have an e-mail address. But do I
really need Internet? No. McDonalds, the coffee shop, two or three gas
stations, the cell phone store, the library, even the churches have Wi-Fi, and
we live near a T-I-N-Y town. If I can go
jack some free Wi-Fi in Tinytown, Texas, I’m pretty sure folks can jack Wi-Fi
most anywhere except possibly rural Montana and remote Alaska. There’s $60-$80 a month that could stretch
the grocery budget, pay a utility, or get put in savings.
Do folks need
cable TV, Netflix, Hulu, a smartphone, that data plan on your cell phone, all those
minutes? No, probably not. We dumped our smartphones and cut our monthly
bills by $120 by downgrading back to flip phones with no data plan. We don’t have any TV subscription, no subscription
movie services, no Game Fly or any of that. Those are wants. Folks can live without them just fine, they
just don’t want to.
Folks don’t
need their hair professionally done, fancy nails, a steady supply of new
clothes, that brand new car, an iPad, expensive sneakers, or that new gaming
system. Folks don’t need a million different
beauty supplies, half a dozen cleaning supplies for every room, little chemical
pots to plug into outlets and make their house smell. If it comes down to it, it’s not necessary to
shave every night, buy smelly lotions from fancy stores that you can smell
before you can even see them, or have that moisturizing body wash that costs $5
or more for less than two cups.
You know what
folks need: A roof overhead, food on the
table, warmth in the winter, and a way to pay for those things. Learn to cook, buy real food or, even better,
grow it. Buy in bulk and eat at
home. Skip the cafeteria and pack a
lunch. Ditch the smart phone, clean with
vinegar or bleach, and ditch the fancy, smelly stuff. Jewelry can’t be eaten. That $20 worth of makeup won’t help cover the
electric bill. $10 a month for a Hulu or
Netflix subscription doesn’t sound like much, but it boggles my brain when
people say they can’t afford groceries but they keep shelling out for streaming
movies.
Don’t say “I
can’t afford food,” but go out on Friday nights. Don’t say “I can’t live within my means,”
then buy a new shirt instead of sewing on a lost button or buying new jeans instead
of patching the old ones. Don’t trade up
for a new car every year, then complain because the electric got cut off again
due to late payments.
People love to
talk about “the struggle” but in truth many have never struggled a day in their
lives. They need to take their entitled
tails to a place where people really are struggling to live. They need to recognize that it is no one
else’s responsibility to bail them out.
Giving “government” funds to sinking businesses is stealing from one to
pay for someone else’s bad choices.
Giving “government” funds to able-bodied people who won’t earn it is
penalizing producers and rewarding laziness.
Government ordering businesses to double their payroll is just as bad,
because it still has to come from somewhere.
The trickledown lands on the head of the people at the bottom, and those
cost increases are going to hurt the little folks more than anyone else. And guess what? They still won’t be able to afford to live, because
suddenly the cost of everything will have gone up, their hours will have been
cut, their benefits will cost more, and they’ll still be yelling for more
money, because they don’t seem to understand that.
People need to
find their dignity again. That’s most
definitely a need.
These are some
of the things we’re trying to withdraw from on our little homestead. We want to reduce our dependence on the
rat-race as well as reduce our contribution to it. We’re evaluating our wants and our needs,
deciding if those wants are even really worth it, merging them together where
we can. We’re still painfully in our
infancy in this. It’s amazing how much
more capable my grandparents were than I am.
In just a single generation, we as an entire culture have lost so much
knowledge and skills and abilities.
Once it was a
matter of necessity to put away enough food for your family for the year. Then it became a matter of pride to not have
to work in the earth. That fast, we lost
so much, and trying to learn with no mentor to guise us is trial and
error. I still haven’t even successfully
grown my first tomato plant, though I am trying again this year. We will get there, if only through sheer
determination and a heck of a lot of trial and error. We’ll get there. And you know what? We’ll be danged proud of ourselves.
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