For those who know me well, saving money has never been high on my priority list. I joke that’s why I married Matthew. He is amazing at handling money, saving, preparing, and taking care of us. I’d be sunk by now if I had not married that amazing man!
I like to spend money. I like to shop, I like to get new things (and really GOOD deals at preowned stores). I like to eat at great restaurants and go away for fun weekends.
Over the course of these past several months, I’ve noticed something different. I’m starting to like to save. It began small when I’d tuck away $20 a week from my cash envelope. My goal had been to use it to get something we’d really like. BUT by Christmas, I still had the cash and didn’t really know what to do with it. We put it in a bank account and continue to add to it. How fun to have started that myself!
I have many dreams and goals, and in this world, they involve money. I’d love to continue leading a simpler life well into the new year where many of those goals can be achieved. Wouldn’t be it amazing to build a well as a family for a village that needed clean water? Or how about sponsoring a large group of older orphans, enabling them to survive and THRIVE? How about an amazing family vacation where we focused on each other and created some pretty great memories together?
See, it is true (and I know for you savers out there, you say “well duh!”) that when you save money for something, it really does feel pretty good when that goal and dream is accomplished?
I was born in Jos, Nigeria many years ago. I spent the next nineteen years living in Liberia, Kenya and Ethiopia.
sounds great! One thing you might want to consider: everything we have seen and heard during our years in Tanzania has shown that drilled wells end up a failure. They break after about two years and even though villagers have been “trained” to maintain them and fix them, they don’t. A very good friend who works in a village says that there are hundreds of such broken wells scattered throughout Africa. Instead, he encourages hand-dug wells. He organizes groups of villagers and gives them the supplies they need, and they dig the wells themselves, by hand. It costs only a few hundred dollars. Those wells will last 100 years (he says), and the men in the village already know how to maintain them without any training. Plus, they’ve done it themselves so they take ownership of it and are able to reproduce them throughout the community. However, I don’t know of any organizations that organize this for people to donate to. But I have definitely become a believer in hand-dug wells!
I was sent over here by “Cathytalks.” Here’s a great organization that helps provide traditional wells…I’ve seen them in person years after they’re dug and they’re still functional. The great thing about World Vision is that they stay in a community for 15-20 years…which means if a well does break (for any number of reasons) there is someone there to help re-train if needed. http://donate.worldvision.org/OA_HTML/xxwv2ibeCCtpItmDspRte.jsp?section=10373&item=170
The comments about wells here are interesting.
Happy New Year to you and yours!
Cindy