What it means to me to not keep up with the Joneses

I have been thinking about this lately. What exactly does it mean for one to "Not" keep up with the Joneses?

One big step is to pay cash as you go. A couple of years ago our vehicle was a 1991 dodge caravan, matter of fact we just sold it this past spring and bought a paid for cash 2003 pontiac grand am for $3900. Before we sold our caravan however there were a few incidents where someone would say for example; "Hey, look at the great deal we just got on this car to "Lease", you should go do the same, it only costs $359 a month for 5 years."
Don't you just love it (Not!) when someone else tries to spend your hard earned money? Or you hear, "I needed that" I just think "No, you wanted that".

We don't have a big fancy house, our choice, but it is homey, easy to heat in the winter and keep cool in the summer.

We "usually" have an emergency fund set aside, yes it has been depleted while moving to help bring the mortgage down but, I still have a couple of hundred set aside for that "just in case" and I will have that up and running in no time flat, I have no doubt. We are not in a situation where we are robbing Peter to pay Paul, all of our bills are paid on time so no interest charges.

I really love the fact that when school fees come due that we can pay with cash. There is no writing cheques or calling to make arrangements to pay at a later date. I also love it when as soon as say, our phone bill comes in or our hydro bill I can pay it on that day.

There are other things we do as well to stay ahead of the "Rat Race", stockpile,cook from scratch, I cut our hair, have a change jar, vegetable garden (although not this year with the move).

We are not perfect but dh and I try. We havn't always lived this way either. I remember the time when we had the car payments, saw something we "wanted" and just bought it before really thinking on it among other things.

I did have a friend however a few months back ask me what our secret was. I said "secret?" She said that it just seemed like we always have cash to pay for things and if the kids need something we can afford to pick it up etc.....We sat down and I told her that it was no secret, we just live below our means :)

Booked Our Hotel For Our Move

Another "To make a long story short". Dh retired form the Canadian Forces after 23 years of service 2 1/2 years ago. We have up to 3 years after retirement for a paid for move to anywhere in Canada. We decided to take this offer and move closer to our dd's school which is a 15 minute drive away. We live on a snow belt so it is hard for me to drive around the river etc in the winter (I never did like winter driving!) This is going to save us on Gas big time! We have been known to make up to 5 trips in one day so round trip is 30 minutes, Yup, that would be 2 1/2 hours of driving in one day!

Instead of using the word "Hotel" I suppose I should say "Motel". We decided to get a "Penthouse" suit (which I am assuming is above the office lol as I had noticed the motel while driving by before in the city but didn't pay too much attention) It has two bedrooms, kitchen,living room etc....This will save us on our food bill. Our meals are paid for as we are allotted a certain amount of $ each day for that but one can only take eating out so many times plus, any money we don't use on food is ours for savings. We are going to view it tomorrow.

It will be nice to get back to normal, I have depleted our food in the freezer and fridge. We will be in the motel for 8 nights and all of our furniture and belongings will be kept in storage until we move to our "new to us house", freezer and fridge included!

This isn't my first blog, I have failed at many matter of fact....well ok 2 lol. I have blogged about living frugal and living simply. I am actually not to bad with trying to be suzy homemaker, saving money etc..however, I tend to fall off every now and again so, I have decided to start this blog about not keeping up with the Joneses.

I am not one for buying expensive things but like "almost" everyone I do have my weaknesses.My weakness right now would be my children. I will shop at value village while my children do not want to wear second hand clothes. This is fine, we set a budget on x amount of $ and if they want designer clothing they can make up the difference.We have not had a car payment since 2002 and that suits me just fine. Most of our furniture is second hand. We live in a modest bungalow although we just sold this one and will be moving into another bungalow in the next town from here next week.

To save money I : cut my families hair (I cut my own as well)
Have a change jar (we use this for special occassions like eating out once every couple of months)
Pay ourselves first
Cook at home.

Well now, more to follow a bit later, today is dds 16th birthday and we are invited over to our friends for a nice dinner :)