Fun, Cheap or Free and the Grace of Enough

A few weeks ago, my friend sent me a video of a woman explaining her snack routine for her kids. I watched this woman with perfect hair and makeup stroll through her home saying that her kids could only have snacks up to a certain time before dinner and that foods in wrappers (crackers, fruit snacks, etc) were only for lunchtime at school. As she gave her viewers a tour of her GORGEOUS kitchen with refrigerated drawers and fully stocked cabinets with beautifully labelled containers, I couldn't help but think "Wow...I could have that, too...if I had money to hire someone to organize my life for me." But as I watched her stories and clicked through her posts, I found that her life is not perfect, that she and her husband have fought through debt, have messy corners in their home and meals that are improvised from whatever happens to be in the freezer at that given moment.

The woman I am referring to is Jordan Page of the popular blog, Fun, Cheap, or Free. When I first looked at that title and compared it to her blog, I thought to myself, "Wow....she must have a lot of fun!" (Nothing looked cheap or free!) But as I looked deeper, I noticed some of her strategies and even decided to take on one of her challenges, the Spending Freeze Challenge. The Spending Freeze challenges readers to refrain from spending any money for 7 days straight. Exceptions are made for bills or emergencies. Participants are also allowed to use gift cards or gift certificates. Going to the grocery store for that egg that's missing from your ingredients for Friday night dinner or clicking "purchase" on Netflix or Amazon for an on demand movie, however, was a no no. I thought it would be a snap! I started the challenge last Tuesday, and I was doing great until this Sunday. I had run out of feminine products. I shrugged the challenge aside. Surely this had to fall under emergencies, right? I stopped by the grocery store after Mass and as I was walking through the aisles, I broke. I realized I didn't have the ingredients for the gumbo I had been craving. Surely it wouldn't be so bad if I stopped for a bunch of celery and a few cups of rice. Instead of leaving with just one emergency item, I ended up leaving with three. I fell short of the challenge! Of course, I appeased myself by saying that it wasn't so bad. Rice and celery were things I was going to eventually buy this month anyway, so I wasn't technically spending extra money. But I think this challenge was about more than just pulling out a ten dollar bill or swiping your card at the checkout stand. It was also about restraint, which brings me to Haley Stewart's book, The Grace of Enough.

I started following Haley Stewart on Twitter because people I was already following were constantly re-tweeting her stuff! She tweeted a lot about her family and raising Catholic children. She eventually started tweeting about a book she was writing about "pursuing less and living more in a throwaway culture," and within a few weeks of its release, I purchased it. The premise was captivating enough. Haley and her family made the decision to move to a sustainable farm for a year, and with that decision came non-flushing toilets, farm life and having to say no to a lot of extras. One of the things that struck me the most was her theory on how our world has sacrificed connectedness for convenience. She goes on to recount how there were times when if you were short a cup of sugar for a recipe, you would go next door to ask to borrow a cup of sugar. These days, we hop into the car and drive to the nearest grocery store for a sack of sugar, which technically takes more time than knocking on your neighbor's door. The problem is that we can't be bothered with making a connection with a person who we might see again.

I was talking to a friend of mine about this concept this weekend: Why do we deem people to be inconvenient? Or worse, do we worry about whether or not we will be getting our cup of sugar back? Do we really need it that much? What would have happened if I took that spending freeze seriously and asked a friend if she had some extra feminine products they could spare for a couple of days? (Borderline TMI, I know. But bear with me. I'm trying to make a point here!) Maybe I wouldn't have spent that extra money on rice and celery that I was craving but didn't need. I could have looked at my shelves and thought of something else to eat. I can't speak for anyone else, but I think many of us have fallen into the trap of "I need it now," even if it is in subtle ways.

If we were to take an honest look at ourselves, we'd find that we really do have more than we need. If we take a good look at what we have, we realize that people are more important than products. Whether we're Jordan Page on a successful blog or Haley Stewart on a sustainable farm, we'll realize that we live in a world of abundance. Even if you're like me, you can look in your fridge tomorrow morning and see that you have 3 different choices for breakfast. You would find that there's no need to stop for a McSomething or a cup of Starbucks coffee. Instead, you can save those extra bucks for something fun...or cheap...or free.