Oprah and Money
Did you happen to catch yesterday’s Oprah? The mother of six has spent her family into financial ruin. And her husband has not stepped in to help stop the madness. The family seems to be a picture perfect suburban family with a great home and money to burn. However, they have burned all of their money until none is left.
Of course, the reasons are psychological. The mother is trying desperately to fill an emptiness or whatnot. I am not here to judge as there was a time in my life when I was less frugal. (Granted, not to the financial devastation of my family.) Seeing this show served as a reminder to me that I should be thankful that it was fairly easy for my family to give up things such a big house in the ‘burbs and brand new cars so that I can stay at home with my children. My family has health insurance, two cars, and we own a with enough room for everyone to have their own space. We have plenty of food and new clothes when we need them. The blessings are endless. By embracing frugality we have been able to live comfortably.
If we had stayed in the town we were in (the town we adore and hope to move back to once I am working again!) after I quit my job we would have been in over our heads with “Keeping Up With The Jones’s”. I feel like moving away from that life, even though we had to move away from the best school system in the state, gave us perspective. We can move back and get the benefits of living in a great town without the baggage of playing the money games that people play. We are happy here with less and I think we will appreciate having more someday than we would have if we had not been forced into frugality.
I can promise this: No matter how much money I make I will never make daily visits to Starbucks (especially when I can make it at home for so much less!). Who would voluntarily waste money like that? Someone who is missing other parts of his or her self, that’s who!
Here is a great post about starting a business from home!
October 19th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
It’s sad to me that her husband wouldn’t step in and help her when there was obviously something wrong.