The cost of existing

A couple of interesting articles caught my eye this week on the subject of what constitutes a livable income. One is entitled "America’s Feast-or-Famine Reality: When $100,000 Feels Like Poverty," and it's an analysis of a more in-depth discussion called "My Life Is a Lie" by Michael W. Green, which breaks down the "real" definition of America's middle class. (For the second article, skip the top section and scroll down to the heading "How a Broken Benchmark Quietly Broke America." That's where the interesting stuff begins.)

Apparently the definition of poverty in America is wildly outdated; and as a result, so is what defines the middle class. Using "conservative, national-average data," Green argues that a family of four (two working parents, two kids) must earn a minimum of $136,500 per year to qualify as middle class. This is the financial breakdown (read the article for the explanations):

• Childcare: $32,773

• Housing: $23,267

• Food: $14,717

• Transportation: $14,828

• Healthcare: $10,567

• Other essentials: $21,857

• Required net income: $118,009

• Add federal, state, and FICA taxes of roughly $18,500, and you arrive at a required gross income of $136,500. 

Phew.

I would imagine there are vast discrepancies between urban and rural costs for these categories, but they still seems crazy-expensive.

Since the vast majority of us don't make anywhere near $136,500 per year, the author makes some very compelling arguments for why those in true poverty (at or below $35,000/year) do better – because of government assistance programs – than those whose income exceeds the poverty threshold but doesn't reach "middle class" levels. Green terms this position the "Valley of Death" because it's so hard to escape or get ahead.

I strongly urge you to read the entire article – actually, both articles. Then feel free to share where you fall on this financial spectrum.

Funding the "American dream"

Recently I saw an article entitled "Visualizing The Cost Of The American Dream In 2025."

The opening paragraph reads: "The American Dream isn’t cheap. Owning a home, raising a family, and retiring comfortably now total over $5 million across a lifetime for a household. This milestone has grown increasingly out of reach as the median age of a U.S. homebuyer has risen to 56, up from 31 in 1981. Meanwhile, U.S. fertility rates have hit record lows amid rising unaffordability."

The article breaks down the cost of the American dream as follows:

I'm astounded by some of these costs.

Some figures are quite accurate. Owning a home is, indeed, increasingly unaffordable for many people, in large part because there are so few inexpensive starter homes to give young couples a foothold in the real estate market. Healthcare costs are similarly expensive.

Beyond that, however, are these figures accurate? Do people honestly spend nearly $40,000 on their pets? Over $38,000 for a wedding? Nearly $900,000 raising two kids, and even more than that on cars?

I have a feeling the Lewis family is working on a completely different scale of economy than what these figures illustrate.....

The argument for buying ahead

Don and I have been engaged in several heavy-duty projects lately. Of course you know about the milking stall and calf pen:

Now we're consumed with getting the garden properly fenced against deer. We've foregone making the remaining garden beds in favor of getting the entire garden area covered with weed cloth, rocked in with gravel, braced by extravagantly tall poles, and netted in deer netting. (Don't worry, I'll put up a full blog post on the project when it's complete.)

But here's the thing: We're hardly spending any money during the process of working on these projects. Since my job loss in mid-February, we've cut back our discretionary spending by well over 90% and now purchase very little beyond groceries and our regular monthly bills. This is nothing unusual; over the 35 years of our marriage, frugality has been the norm, not the exception, so tightening our belts is second nature.

However during the last four years since moving to our current home, we were in a unique position with no debt and a modest-but-steady income. During those four years, we bought things.

Lots of things.

We bought things we knew we would need for future projects with the goal of transitioning our property into a homestead. Field fencing, horse panels, hardware cloth, drip irrigation supplies, hog panels, T-posts, cinder blocks, lumber, plywood, wire (various gauges), weed cloth, gravel, sand, rope, fasteners (screws, nails, bolts, hog rings, etc.), tools, deer netting, sheet metal, the 1500-gallon water tank ... the list goes on and on and on and on and on.

During those heady days, even the merest passing fancy could become reality. Don mentioned one day last year that a tool he'd love to have but didn't want to spend the money on was a T-post puller; I bought it for him for Christmas.

Well, those days are over and our spending is done. But you know what? Now we have the tools and supplies we need to bring endless projects to fruition with very little additional outlay. With our current project, for example (the garden), the only thing we've had to purchase was some hardware (hose clamps, notably) and an extra dump-truck load of gravel.

The peace of mind that comes from having all those things poised and ready to use – especially now, with our severely down-turned income – is hard to describe. We're not handicapped by a lack of money in accomplishing our homesteading goals and striding toward self-sufficiency.

Some might argue that we should have spent those four years saving our money or putting it into intelligent investments. Well, we did put some money in savings; and literally everything else was invested. It's just that our form of investment isn't what Wall Street has in mind for high yields.

Now those investments are paying big-time dividends.

Loud budgeting

Social media trends famously come and go. Some are stupid, some are dangerous ... but once in a while you come across a trend that actually makes sense.

Thanks to social media, the pressure to keep up with the proverbial Joneses and appear more affluent than one really is, it seems, is bigger than ever.

But I just caught wind of something called "loud budgeting."

Apparently in some areas (the articles I read focused on New York City), there is a great deal of social pressure NOT to admit you're on a budget. Therefore if you're invited out for drinks or a meal or a nightclub, you feel compelled to go and must never admit you can't afford it.

"Picture this," begins one such article. "You’re out to dinner with a friend who you know makes a lot more money than you do. When you open the menu, your heart sinks. There’s not an entree in sight that’s less than $35, and even a soup is going to run you $18. Then the waiter comes by with…oh God, is that an in-house sommelier? That's it, you’re dropping $100 tonight, at the very least. If you’ve been in this scenario (and let’s be real, who hasn’t) you probably left the dinner and vowed to subsist on dollar pizzas slices until payday to make up for it. But what if you just turned to your friend, closed the menu, and said, 'Sorry, I have to be honest. I can’t afford this. Let’s go somewhere else?'"

And that defiant act – telling your friend you can't afford something – is now called "loud budgeting." Excuse me while I stand up and cheer and pump my fist in enthusiastic support of this trend.

The trend may have started as something of a joke on TikTok, but those in the financial services industry are getting on board as well. The trend has even been highlighted on Good Morning America.

One financial advisor says she’s seen social media add pressure to her clients to spend beyond their means on luxury items they can’t really afford, and welcomes a movement to mitigate that: "I think [social media] can make a lot of younger people feel like they're behind to some capacity and that they have to keep up with that and they have to be buying luxury and brand named items, whether it's clothing or cars or whatever the case may be, and put it out there."

In short, younger people are learning financial struggles are the norm, not the exception; and that frugality and avoiding debt is freedom, not slavery. This is a very, very good lesson to learn at a young age.

One person said, "Staying quiet about your finances and setting spending limits don't have to be shrouded in shame."

Trends may come and trends may go, but hopefully this one sticks around.

Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea?

Don saw a startling headline a couple days ago: "Burrito Now, Pay Later: DoorDash-Klarna Deal Feeds U.S. Debt Addiction."

In a nutshell, the food delivery service DoorDash, having teamed up with the online financial server Klarna, will "let cash-strapped consumers pay for restaurant food, groceries and other delivery orders in four equal, interest-free installments, or "at a more convenient time, such as a date that aligns with their paycheck schedules."

Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea?

This article sparked a lively discussion in the Lewis household. Older Daughter used to drive for DoorDash to earn extra money (this was during the pandemic lockdowns), so she's more familiar with the service than we are. But the one thing we kept noticing during the time she was driving was how much the price of a meal got jacked up as a result of the service (delivery + tip).

In some ways, this highlights a conundrum I've never understood. The article refers to "cash-strapped consumers." But if you're strapped for cash, why are you ordering food? If you can't afford a takeout meal, why are you ordering one? What is the financial benefit of spreading payment over four installments? What am I missing?

Maybe part of this era of DoorDash and other food delivery options has to do with a general aversion to cooking. Scratch cooking appears to be a dying art, and people have this big space in their house or apartment devoted to food preparation that never sees anyone prepare any food. Instead, people will order food and then be unable to afford to pay for it all at once.

Lest I sound too much like a curmudgeon, I understand there are times someone may be too tired or too sick to cook, in which case food delivery is nice for an occasional treat. The fact that such options don't exist in our rural area doesn't reflect the immense popularity of these services. But ordering food all the time? Yikes.

"Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) arrangements have surged in recent years," notes the article. "However, what began as a reasonable accommodation for large purchases like appliances and furniture has now metastasized to a point where Americans can finance Friday-night-pizza impulse-buys."

Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks this is a bad idea. The article notes, "For the financially disorganized or imminently insolvent, the interest-free option could prove to be a siren song that leaves their cash flow dashed against the metaphoric rocks of unexpectedly expensive burritos and Kung Pao chicken. ... Even for those who make timely payments, the interest-free option can have a destructive effect over time, by encouraging consumers to commit to spending more money than they would in the absence of the appealing, 'interest-free' enticement.

It continues: "The problem is these things start having a very pervasive and very negative influence on people who can't afford it,' Anish Nagpal, an University of Melbourne marketing professor who studies behavioral decision-making, told the Washington Post. "They just want something now, and they go into this spiral of debt and always trying to chase up and meet the payment requirement."

Don speculates that perhaps DoorDash – which boomed during the pandemic – might be experiencing hard times and looking for ways to boost their business. However this is pure speculation.

It strikes me that lessons in impulse control, scratch cooking, and money management would all be equally useful additions to our educational system.

Black belts in frugality

For obvious reasons, the subject of frugality has been very much on our minds lately. Now that we're facing our first full week without gainful employment, I thought it might be useful to describe our belt-tightening activities.

Our black belts in frugality didn't start last week, or last month, or last year. The foundation was laid way back in 1992 when Don and I gave up our well-paying city jobs and moved to a fixer-upper on four acres in southwestern Oregon. We went from a combined income of $70K (extremely decent for the time) to zip, zero, zilch, nada. Now that was an adjustment.

But we made it work and, needless to say, learned a lot.

As a financial exercise for our current belt-tightening, I looked up some budgeting advice, much of which involved creating spreadsheets for various categories. Almost all budgeting advice includes the need to be flexible (for when life throw you lemons) and the importance of tracking one's spending

One such article had some sensible advice, including splitting income between needs (50%), wants (30%), and savings (20%). Personally I'd drop that "wants" category by quite a bit, but then we're still in the adjustment phase, not maintenance phase.

This website listed 18 budgeting categories as follows:

• Housing (rent, mortgage, taxes, insurance, maintenance, HOA fees)

• Transportation (payments, gas, repairs, insurance, parking fees, registration, public transportation costs, etc.)

• Food (grocery costs, restaurant meals, take-out or delivery, coffee shop stops, alcohol, work lunches)

• Utilities (propane, electricity, water, cell phones, internet, trash)

• Medical/health care (insurance, prescriptions, eyeglasses, out-of-pocket costs)

• Additional insurance (life, disability, etc.)

• Taxes (state, federal)

• Education/childcare (N/A in our case)

• Debt payments (personal loans, student loans, credit cards)

• Retirement/savings (something, hopefully, we won't touch; but nor are we likely to be able to add to it for a while)

• Household items/supplies (cleaning supplies, paper goods, home decor, small appliances)

• Personal care (hair, nail, makeup, beauty items, massages, spa treatments)

• Clothing (including shoes, accessories, purses, backpacks, work clothing)

• Entertainment (gym memberships, cable TV, movies, events, bars, hobbies/crafts, streaming services)

• Travel (airfare, car rentals, tickets, hotels, souvenirs)

• Pets (food, medication, vet visits, accessories such as toys)

• Gifts/charitable giving (charity, church, holidays, special events such as birthdays, etc.)

• Miscellaneous (could include things like bank fees, "excessive personal spending," postage, etc.)

I've said it before: If we had to lose our major income stream, it couldn't have happened at a better time in our lives. However that's because we've spent years pre-positioning ourselves in some major, major ways.

Some of those major pre-positioning tactics include:

• Living in a low cost-of-living area. Most, though not all, rural areas fall into this category.

• Purchasing our home outright when we sold our last place. This decision meant we had to limit our options to what we could afford, which means our current home is not our "dream" home, but that's okay. We're in the process of making it into our dream home, and that's what counts.

• Years of whittling down expenses. Make no mistake, this takes practice; but the results can be astounding (as the budget analysis below will show).

• Purchasing in advance things we knew we would need. During times when money is less tight, buying up things you know you'll need not only fights against inflation, but provides a cushion when income drops. We don't have to buy coffee or tea, for example, because we have plenty. We bought a rototiller last fall (a very high-ticket item for us), and now it's ours whenever we need it. Remember when I bought a few extra pairs of prescription eyeglasses? Yeah, ask me how happy I am to have those in reserve (I am absolutely blind without my glasses). We pre-purchased building materials when we could afford it, so when it comes time to build a chicken coop, finish the garden infrastructure (including fencing and drip irrigation), construct a calf pen and milking stall, etc., the out-of-pocket expenses to complete these projects should be low.

• Getting out of debt. Oh heavens, the freedom that comes with being out of debt is indescribable. This isn't something that can be accomplished easily; but if you still have a dependable income, I recommend aggressively paying off debt as fast as humanly possible. And then – this is important – don't acquire more. It's one of the reasons we transitioned to an all-cash lifestyle so many years ago; it means we don't fill up our (single) credit card with frivolous purchases.

So anyway, this is how we handle the budget categories listed above:

• Housing (rent, mortgage, taxes, insurance, maintenance, HOA fees). We have no mortgage, and we budget for the two bills we'll get every December: property taxes and homeowner's insurance. Our property taxes went up (no surprise), and now we pay about $1000/year. Our homeowner's insurance nearly doubled to $2000/year. Since both these bills come due in December, we have time to save up for them.

• Transportation (payments, gas, repairs, insurance, parking fees, registration, public transportation costs, etc.). We own our older (used) cars outright, so insurance is low; however we often have to pay for repairs as a result of driving beaters. Since we work from home, we probably spend about $150/month on gasoline (driving to town for church, errands, etc.). Don did mention he plans to curtail those "quick trips" to the hardware store for this or that, and instead will plan and combine such trips with other errands to avoid using gas. This means we'll be more housebound, but we're homebodies anyway, so it's no biggee.

• Food (grocery costs, restaurant meals, take-out or delivery, coffee shop stops, alcohol, work lunches). Take-out or delivery food is unheard of in our area, so that's not even on our radar. We had been in the habit over the last couple years of enjoying a restaurant meal about once a month, so that stops. We don't frequent coffee shops, have work lunches, or buy alcohol. (Once my current box of chardonnay is gone, it's gone.) Our pantry is full, as is our chest freezer, so with the exception of fresh vegetables, our food expenses are low, especially if we cut back on frivolous things. Besides, this year we'll have a garden and fresh milk from our own cow.

• Utilities (propane, electricity, water, cell phones, internet, trash). We have no water or trash costs. Our water comes from our well, and our trash is covered by our property taxes (our area doesn't have pickups, but rather centralized dumpsters). Normally our electricity bill is about $110 a month, but it spikes to almost twice that in the winter, because we use a stock-tank heater to keep the livestock water ice-free. We don't have smart phones (just one "dumb phone" for roadside emergencies), and of course we have internet service. Bottom line, there isn't a lot we can cut from our utilities.

• Medical/health care (insurance, prescriptions, eyeglasses, out-of-pocket costs). This is probably the biggest question readers have about our frugal lifestyle. How do we handle health insurance? Don is now covered by Medicare, and I'm covered by Christian Healthcare Ministries (a medical sharing business). Our monthly out-of-pocket costs for both these programs comes to about $415 for the two of us. Neither of us are on any prescription medicines, except Don's low-dosage blood pressure medication, which costs about $200/year. We thank God that we're in good health.

• Additional insurance (life, disability, etc.). We have no additional insurance.

• Taxes (state, federal). We pay quarterly taxes since we're self-employed. I'm working on our taxes at present; what we pay in quarterlies may go down since we can document a large income drop.

• Education/childcare. Not applicable in our case.

• Debt payments (personal loans, student loans, credit cards). Not applicable in our case.

• Retirement/savings. Contributions to our retirement savings is obviously taking a hit, and hopefully we'll never be in a position where we have to tap into our retirement savings.

• Household items/supplies (cleaning supplies, paper goods, home decor, small appliances). Not applicable, especially when on a budget. We have enough cleaning supplies and toilet paper to last a while, and home decor isn't even on our radar.

• Personal care (hair, nail, makeup, beauty items, massages, spa treatments). Bwahahaha. Nope.

• Clothing (including shoes, accessories, purses, backpacks, work clothing). Again, nope. We have plenty of clothes and shoes. Besides, I hate clothes.

• Entertainment (gym memberships, cable TV, movies, events, bars, hobbies/crafts, streaming services). Not applicable in our case.

• Travel (airfare, car rentals, tickets, hotels, souvenirs). We travel very little, and will travel even less going forward. I haven't flown since 2019. Don and I took a couple of road trips last year, but that's not likely to happen this year. The one trip we do have budgeted this year is to drive down to southern California to visit my very elderly parents.

• Pets (food, medication, vet visits, accessories such as toys). We have a lot of dog food on hand, and of course we take Mr. Darcy to the vet when necessary. We'll also be needing some additional hay for the cows before long, which we'll purchase as needed. We are responsible for the pets and livestock under our care, and have no intention of neglecting them.

• Gifts/charitable giving (charity, church, holidays, special events such as birthdays, etc.). It was a tough decision, but we had to cut back on our charitable donations (church and other charities). We hope God understands. As for holidays and birthdays, etc., the only time we ever spend money for these events is at Christmas (and not much even then), so we'll see what this upcoming holiday is like.

• Miscellaneous (could include things like bank fees, "excessive personal spending," postage, etc.). We have no bank (or credit union, in our case) fees; "excessive personal spending" is out of the question; and we'll handle other miscellaneous expenses as they come up.

When we sat down for our "budget summit" after I got the news I was being laid off, we estimated our streamlined yearly expenses (including food, charitable giving, taxes, insurance, etc.) to be around $18K. We're confident we can bring in that amount through freelance writing, so at this point, we're optimistic we'll be able to continue.

As Don put it, our goal is to give ourselves bonus points for wherever we can cut costs. He's talking about taking me out for pizza on a Friday or Saturday night as a sort of last hurrah (we haven't been able to do this for years!), but then ... that's it. Future pizzas will be made at home.

So this explains our black belts in frugality. I welcome any thoughts on how we can cut more costs and trim our expenses even further.

Well, that didn't take long....

A couple of days ago, I posted about how we're going to gradually start monetizing this blog. The reason? We were bracing ourselves to lose one of our larger income streams, and therefore we were looking for ways to bring in supplemental revenue.

Well, it all went down faster than we thought. On Friday, we learned I was being laid off from my online job. Grunt. This fills me with mixed emotions. On one hand, I very much like my coworkers, and will miss working with them. On the other hand, the hours were long and I won't miss getting up at 4:30 am to start work by 5 am.

As with anyone facing a layoff, Don and I staggered around in shock for a few hours after we got the news. Last night we held a budget summit during which we mapped out our monthly and yearly expenses, and identified where we can cut back. Discretionary spending, of course, is being severely curtailed until further notice.

We recognize we're wildly fortunate, for a number of reasons:

• We have no mortgage. We own our home outright.

• Our living expenses are very low. After decades of frugality, we have black belts in frugality. That experience is coming in handy right now.

• We have other income streams, albeit not as large or as stable as the one we just lost.

So our task right now is to adjust our expenses to our reduced income, while simultaneously working to increase that income. We are SO used to his. We've done it many times before. It's not a hardship, it's a challenge.

In a way, I'm looking forward to my last day of work. It will allow me to devote more time to writing, which is how I'm hoping to ramp up our revenue. I'll be approaching the various editors I've worked with over the years and pitching additional material. Don and I will also be querying about new publishing opportunities to see if we can broaden our writing credits.

So while a door is closing, some windows are opening. It's just another adventure.

Give up those paper towels

Recently a reader had a question about our paper towel usage, or lack thereof. Specifically she wrote: "You’ve commented before that a roll of paper towels lasts you quite some time because you rarely use them. I’m curious. When do you use paper towels?"

For us, paper towels were one of the casualties of our transition to a non-disposable lifestyle, during which we phased out anything we could (except toilet paper) that wasn't reusable. At the time, the list included the following:

• Paper napkins
• Paper plates
• Plastic cutlery
• Plastic wrap (Saran Wrap, etc.)
• Plastic/paper cups
• Shopping bags
• Vacuum cleaner bags
• Coffee filters
• Canning lids
• Baby wipes
• Disposable razors
• Feminine hygiene
• Paper towels
• Disposable diapers
• Facial tissue
• Batteries

Obviously baby wipes and disposable diapers are a legacy from when the girls were babies; but at that juncture we were having financial struggles, so cloth diapers and homemade baby wipes were de rigueur for our frugal lifestyle.

Fast forward to about ten years ago, when we phased out the rest of the disposable options listed above and replaced them with washable and/or reusable versions.

I cannot emphasize enough how wonderfully life-altering this transition to renewables was. It brought awareness to how many disposable "necessities" are recent inventions entirely unheard of a hundred years ago. Some items had a higher upfront cost (washable feminine hygiene, rechargeable batteries, etc.), but those costs have long since amortized.

Anyway, on to paper towels. At the time we were phasing out disposables, paper towels drew the biggest gasp from everyone aware of our project. People, it seems, are insanely devoted to paper towels. How could we live without them? Short answer: A drawer full of terrycloth dishtowels that are changed out sometimes several times a day (especially during active kitchen projects) and a basket full of rags for really dirty jobs.

I buy white terrycloth "shop rags" in a 60-count bale from Costco. A bale will last me for 10 years or more of hard use before the towels become ratty or worn enough to recycle into rags. These are our "paper towels."

So, with dish towels so inexpensive and versatile, why are people so devoted to paper towels?

I think I got my answer many years ago while visiting a friend. I needed to wash my hands at her kitchen sink, where she kept a dish towel hanging from a hook. Naturally I reached for the dish towel to dry my hands… and was so revolted I had to re-wash my hands and use a paper towel for drying. That's because the dish towel was greasy, rank, and damp. It was one of those pretty decorative towels that evidently never got washed.

I've since learned that having decorative towels in the kitchen is fairly common for a lot of people. Decorative towels are expensive, so folks don't have 50 or 60 tumbled in a drawer. They don't change them or wash them on a regular basis. As a result, the towels are either (a) never used, because they're so pretty; or (b) used so heavily that they get greasy, rank, and damp (and, most importantly, never washed). No wonder paper towels are so popular.

That said, we do use paper towels. A couple years ago, I noted in "The conclusion of a small experiment" that it took us 14 months (and two moves) to go through a single roll.

The reader's original question is, what do we use paper towels for? Short answer: For when we don't want to throw away the cloth. We use paper towels for absorbing bacon grease, for wiping up things that won't wash out (such as spilled paint or varnish), and occasionally for things we just don't want to deal with (notably dog vomit or other Really Messy Stuff). Literally that's all the uses I can think of.

So what's the easiest way to reduce the usage of paper towels? Simple: Remove them from the kitchen. Don't put a roll conveniently within reach. We keep our roll in the pantry, so it's a conscious decision to use it.

I suspect a lot of paper towel usage is reflexive – people just reach for them without thinking. It's simply a habit to break. Try removing the paper towels from easy reach (and make sure there are cloth substitutes at hand) and see what happens.

Hope this helps!

How frugality can save a marriage

A small bit of backstory which most of my long-time readers already know.

When Don and I got married in 1990, we were living in Sacramento. We both had solid well-paying jobs and were living in a nice rental house. We gave up those jobs in early 1993 and rather impulsively moved to rural southwest Oregon, where we bought a fixer-upper on four acres.

The "excuse" for this drastic move was to send me to grad school (Southern Oregon University, where I earned my master's degree in 1995). At the time we moved, we knew we were at a rare now-or-never junction: No kids, no debt, a modest savings account. We were confident our work history would allow us to find decent-paying jobs in our new location.

We were wrong. Our income went from a combined $70K per year (very decent for the time) to zip, zero, zilch, nada. During our first five months in Oregon, while I was in school full-time and accruing debt via student loans, Don was desperately getting the woodcraft business started, which turned into our primary income for decades. By the end of my schooling, I was pregnant with Older Daughter, and becoming a mom took priority over the career I hoped to enter with my master's degree.

And so we struggled financially. We accrued credit-card debt through sheer desperation. We had student loans to pay. We had hospital bills (for the births of our two babies, plus the time Don cut the tip of a finger off on a power tool). I worked outside the home in tandem with Don's schedule (which usually meant nights) so we could trade off child care and avoid costly daycare.

Money struggles drive some couples apart, but it pulled us closer together. We realized the home woodcraft business was the key to allowing us to live rural (this was before remote work via the internet was an option), and we clung to that dream through thick and thin. We never wanted to move back to the city. Ever ever ever.

So we buckled down to make it work. We learned frugality to the nth degree. We learned to raise our babies on an absolute shoestring. Amy Dacyczyn, author of "The Tightwad Gazette" (picked up frugally at a thrift store), was my guru during these years.

It took a long time – especially on a woodcrafter's income, plus whatever part-time work I managed to pick up – but gradually we dug ourselves out of the debt hole we had dug ourselves into, and breathed the light of day once more. The experience left me with something of a pathological fear of owing money as well as a deep-seated hatred of credit cards, but there you go.

It was partly due to our hatred of credit cards as well as a few sour experiences with data breaches (see here and here) that we adopted an all-cash lifestyle over ten years ago, and never looked back. An all-cash lifestyle means we aren't shocked every month by a huge credit card bill. The only reason we use our credit card (yes, singular; we only have one) is to make occasional online purchases, and we also put our monthly expenses (health care, utilities, etc.) on it. And. Then. We. Pay. It. Off. Completely. Every. Month. Without. Fail.

Even today, when our financial position is blessedly more stable (though still modest), we discuss endlessly what we would need to do to tighten our belts and reduce our expenditures should our income fall. I think a little part of us is always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Anyway, the reason for this little backstory is because of a post I read yesterday, seeking advice. The post read as follows, edited slightly for clarity:

"I (male, 35) have been married to my wife (32) for five years, and we've been struggling financially for the past few months. I lost my job about three months ago, and while I've found part-time work, it doesn't pay nearly as much as before.

"We've had to cut back on a lot of things, but it feels like no matter what we do, we're still living paycheck to paycheck and even pulling from savings.

"Recently, my mom (65) came over to visit, and she noticed how stressed I was about the money situation. She offered some advice on how we could save money – things like cutting down on takeout, meal prepping to avoid buying groceries multiple times a week, and switching to cheaper brands. My mom has always been frugal, especially when she was raising me and my siblings on a tight budget.

"I thought it made sense, especially since we're really trying to save wherever we can. I asked if she was willing to go through our spending and show where we could cut down. My wife agreed with this.

"She made a whole spreadsheet about our spending, and we are spending wayyyyy too much on fun stuff. We don't need Starbucks every day and so on. It also became apparent that most of the fun spending was my wife's.

"To be honest, my wife didn't take the breakdown well and started arguing with my mom that her spreadsheet was wrong. She said that my mom's way of doing things is "outdated" and doesn't work for us. She doesn't want to give up buying organic produce, and she likes having variety in what we eat each week.

"I tried to explain that we need to make some sacrifices if we want to get out of this financial hole, but she kept insisting that things weren't as bad as I was making them out to be and that we just needed to "ride it out."

"My mom left at this point and we were still arguing, and she told me she can't give up her takeout. She also went on about my mom being wrong. That's when I lost my patience and said, "You're f***ing wrong. My mom is right. She managed to raise three kinds on one income, and we can't even cut back on groceries for a few months?"

"My wife got really upset, saying I am being a huge jerk for siding with my mom and that my mom is outdated. She's barely spoken to me since, and now I'm wondering if I went too far. But the way I see it, we need to be realistic about our situation, and my mom's advice could actually help us get back on track."

The poster later added: "She (the wife) works part-time and doesn't wish to go full-time. It's not good for her mental health. I'm still the primary earner even with part-time."

Don and I have discussed this post quite a bit. We remember those days of financial struggle and how we tightened our belts. Restaurant meals, takeout foods, and food delivery were absolutely out of the question during those days. We might splurge and get a pizza maybe once or twice a year; the rest of the time, we cooked at home. Cloth diapers, homemade baby food, second-hand everything – that was just the order of the day.

But here's the thing: We looked upon these frugal habits as a challenge, not deprivation. We raised our girls in a happy, stable home. We never thought of ourselves as "poor."

That's why I can't fathom the wife's attitude in the post above. Couples should work together to overcome difficulties and achieve goals, not continue to spend above one's income. By insisting on not changing her spending habits – especially if she's not willing to work full time (I saw no mention that they had children) – I don't see a happy outcome for this marriage ... which is a shame.

Frugality isn't rocket science. It's mostly a matter of an attitude adjustment ... and that includes ignoring the opinions of others or trying to keep up with the Joneses.

Frugality is such a fun, creative lifestyle that it's a pity the lack of interest in adopting thrift can cause marriages to break up.