Don’t be an Ostrich

It’s an urban myth that ostriches stick their heads into the sand.  Instead, they tend to duck down really low when there is a danger about.  The legend is strong, however.  I know quite a few people who are ostriches with their heads in the sand.

I read this nice look book yesterday.  Actually, it is for my daughter’s school project and it’s called She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall.

Taking a kid out of school and finding him a new one, grounding him or doing whatever else you need to do to pull him up short – that might look like shutting him down.  But in fact it’s giving him the possibility of a whole new life.  I’ve told that to so many parents.  Many just disconnect. […] They’re worried, but they can’t conceive of doing anything that will demand a sacrifice, so they pretend it really isn’t so bad.

I think that it’s naturally for married couples to bury their problems because they don’t want to change, they don’t want to sacrifice.  This book talks about the personal sacrifice that this couple made for their daughter, struck by Satanism, but the correlation of finances is just as strong.

My husband and I had a conversation about this yesterday.  We know this couple who, as the years pass, go deeper and deeper into debt.  They take lavish vacations three times a year.  They buy expensive gifts for one another (new cars, new motorcycles, jewelry).  The house they own was too much money.  They have amassed a credit card debt that they will not be able to pay off soon.  One of them works part-time.  The other one will never take overtime, even though it is regularly offered to them.  They go out to eat three times a week.  They regularly post on FaceBook how awful their finances are, but they can’t conceive of doing anything that will demand a sacrifice, so they pretend it really isn’t so bad.

My husband and I know, of course, that getting themselves out of the mountain of debt would probably only take a little bit of work.  If one of them upped their hours to earn only $50 extra a month, they could eventually get out of the mountain of debt.  But that means they will have to pull their heads out of the sand.

Living frugally takes sacrifice.  It means that I have to put something back on the shelf.  It means that I can’t drive an expensive car.  It means that one of us would have to work extra hours instead of sitting on the sofa and sipping red wine together.  It means going to a college class every Wednesday night, even though we’d rather watch television.

The personal sacrifice is different for all of us.  My husband and I want to retire multi-millionaires, so this is a lifestyle choice to make that happen.  For others, it just means going out to eat one less time a week, or picking up a few extra hours a month at work.  Or, cutting coupons.

The great thing about making changes in your life — learning to sacrifice — is that it doesn’t have to happen all at once.  In fact, it’s better that it doesn’t.  Change one thing at a time.  Make coffee once a week, instead of stopping at Starbucks.  That’s not too hard, is it?  Stop going out once a week, instead of every day.  Learn to work at one thing at a time, not a thousand things all at once.

Once that hurdle becomes second nature, then work on the next thing.  Being frugal isn’t about sacrifice.  It’s about changing your bad spending habits so that things aren’t a sacrifice.