We Started Out With Nothing But We Saved!!! That Is The Name Of Life!!!

[CarolineWH]

When we got married we had nothing...I got pregnant immediately which made it rougher...Looking back it is good that I did as I am not sure if our marriage would have held together otherwise...I was spoiled and he had just gotten out of the service....But we made it....And may I add love each other to death...

We, like all young couples, wanted a house...Soon we had two kids...I got in an automobile accident where it was not my fault and the settlement was $500...This we used for our down payment on a new house that was to be built...888 sq. foot ranch...One bath but to us was a castle..We lived and loved there for the next 15 years...Talk about fights for the bathroom, you have no idea...In order to make ends meet my husband worked long hours...We hardly ever went out as we could not afford it...We had Block Parties with other young couples and life became a routine of saving a bit of our money for retirement and raising our children...Four years after our young son was born we added our third child...This was a planned pregnancy as was the second...We grew and continued to save a small part of our money for retirement...This is how it is done...We could not afford to go out to drive in's or out to eat with the kids or ourselves...Never date nights...Just love nights...We grew closer as that is what struggling and life can do...

My husband built a big family room downstairs as the money was available...Just a little at a time...We were thrilled with just the walls up and soon a floor and it all was a part of life...A part of life that people no longer know...They want everything...We had everything....And we still do....When our youngest was 2 we took all three of them to their first motel...This was to be a big outing...Maybe our first...It was out of the area that we lived in and had a large airport...The boys loved airplanes...I took along a lunch and we mostly ate in the car...It was wonderful....The memory stays with me always...Those were dear times..

When the youngest was 5 we took our first vacation....Rented a wonderful cottage from a very wealthy couple near our area...They had advertised that they did this a few times a year to pay the taxes. The interviewed us three times with our children and liked us....We passed the test...It was a five hour drive to their cottage but to our children it was like Christmas....It was wonderful with our own private pier and boats and everything that goes with a new dream.....We loved that week and never forgot it....We loved it so much that every year for the next 7 years we returned...Then the boys got into sports and the girl got into boys and it stopped...But oh what a memory that was....

Five years after our last trip up there we again contacted the owners...We found out that they had sold to someone else...A person who had visited had then purchased their dream cottage...I got hold of them and pleaded with them to allow us just a weekend with our children to rediscover who and what we are and bring them back to their precious place of childhood....They let us do this and we took our babies back to yesterday....I love looking at the pictures of this wonderful Holiday.

My husband stayed at this company...40 some odd years....We continued to save and invested our money with them...We are not rich but we are far from poor...Six years ago with yet another home behind us after we sold the first, we built our ultimate dream house...It is ranch but very big and wonderful...In it we have everything that we could possibly want...In this home we have added anything and everything that an older couple could and would ever need...There will never be a nursing home for us.....This is a result of skimping and saving and going without...Nothing comes without a price....I am not sure of what our price was with the exception of getting closer and clinging to each other and sometimes going without...

I could go on about what I see around me and young people spending like there is no tomorrow...Taking vacations that they cannot afford and thinking that life owes them something...We could have done that too....Or could we? They are living on that great plastic card....Marriages fail and nobody saves...How do you think that we all got in this mess to start....The big bailout...Everyone wants that big American dream when they don't deserve it...

I don't know your answer to life but we found ours.....Just my thoughts...C

[avorrgorrus]

Yeah, every penny counts, I say spend wisely and only when you have to.

A penny saved now is a spendable one for later. ;D