"Believe it or not, Charles, I think you're the richest man in Walnut Grove."
"Nels, I know I am".
It all began with that one episode of "Little House on the Prairie".
Newly married and sucked into the culture of the 21st century, I was exhausted and getting sick. Every evening it was another activity, another errand to run, and another credit card charge. I had no time to even think about what I was spending, how I was eating, or how I was living. I had lost myself amidst the noise. I was taking Tylenol and Advil to numb the back pain I was experiencing due to my life pace. I didn't pay attention to how many and what it might do to my body.
As I watched Charles Ingalls and his family pull together to get out of debt, it lit a spark within me that would not die. I saw a way of living that was different than my hectic life, and I wanted it. I began to research ways to get out of debt and to spend less. All along, I was getting sicker still. I eventually had to quit my job. Thankfully, we had our credit cards paid off by this time. But I'd have to say we were as poor as the poor Ingalls'. With God's help, and after an operation to remove my destroyed gallbladder (due to abuse of pain-killers), I began to steadily improve. My husband and I learned the most valuable lesson of our lives during this rocky time. We learned how to do WITHOUT, (even a refrigerator, at one point) and to trust God like the Ingalls'. Now we are debt free at the age of 31, except for a small 15 year mortgage, and a small car loan on a used car. But - we are not only debt free, but we are free indeed.
AmySue from Pittsburgh, PA
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Thank you for an inspiring story!
Good for you! Here is something that is very helpful and you may have heard of it check out: www.angelfoodministries.com/
Good for you and congratulations!
I won't say that we've never had any debt in our lives, because we have, but nothing like people seem to carry today. Our debt issues seem trivial by todays standards.
Both my husband and I were raised to respect money, and my dad took it one step further....I was taught that you paid your bills before you ate.
When dh and I got married we had the college loan to pay off, eventually a mortgage, and later a car loan, and at times there seemed to be a myriad of other financial outpours (appliances needing replacing, stuff like that). We handled it relatively well. These days, aside from normal household expenses we are relatively debt free. We did have a set back a few years ago when dh lost his job, but thankfully we had a savings to fall back on. Had we not things would have been a whole lot worse. And though it took us a long time to save that money, we somehow managed. We're on that road again, and making progress slowly.
We actually live pretty simply. We live in a small house (again, by todays standards), we don't buy things we don't need, and since we're at a point in our lives where we don't like clutter, that's pretty easy to stick to.
Again congratulations and good luck!
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