Living on the Family Income

Family Reunion, 1867

by Frederick Bazille, France

I call it the family income, because women at home have a knack for turning water into wine. They can take their husband's paycheck and make it  stretch five times, buying  household supplies, and paying necessary bills, just by shrewd shopping and wise choices. Homemakers make several incomes out of one. So, in a sense, they are not surviving on one income, but several. Below, explains how they use the things they have, to make more money.

There are many tricks to this trade. A thrifty homemaker's mind begins to rotate through a whole list of things, when presented with a dilemna of having to buy something expensive. First, she thinks of a way to find it cheaper at a competitive store. Then she looks in a used store or thrift store. She may call around to her friends and family to find something they don't want anymore. Failing that, she might figure out a way to make it herself, or make-shift something. Finally she may decide to do without it, completely. Her mind runs from the expensive to the least costly, within a few minutes.

As a homemaker, you can have every thing you want, if you are willing to make changes in your life. There are trade-offs for things. For example, you might need new furniture, but you do not want to put extra strain on the family income, or neglect the home in order to pursue the money for it. You will learn to be resourceful and find alternate ways of providing the things you need.

For many years, couches and chairs seemed to be pursuing a place in my home, as friends who were buying new things, were trying to find someone to take their used items. Sometimes these items were in great condition and I was able to use them. When they were worn out, I passed them on to someone who liked refurbishing things and selling them. In the end, the shabby-chic lady got more money than the original seller for things like coffee tables, dressers, couches and chairs.

Acquiring these things is a matter of sensing how they could be used or improved in your home. Someone who is used to buying everything in an expensive store might not be able to use an old, chipped table, but someone who is resourceful and who is willing to take the time, might turn that cast-off into something beautiful, without having to worry about extra income to pay for it. There are even those women who like things "just as they are" and somehow manage, by draping her grandmothers old doilies and table cloths over them, to make them charming and useful.

Look in other places for the things you need, beginning at the Dollar Tree or dollar stores. Sometimes some rather high-end products come into those stores, and the same manufacturing companies produce most things, whether they are at high-end, exclusive stores, or dollar stores. Go to yard sales, and garage sales, because sometimes the things you can get there are just pennies in cost, and have only been owned once. Then go to the Goodwills and St. Vincents and other 2nd hand stores. Furniture, dishes, tea cups and all kinds of things there are still in good shape and the cost is less. After you have brought a tea set home, washed and shined it up, no one will know you didnt get it at Macy's if you dont tell them. It could have been some family's estate piece that the children did not want or did not appreciate, and now you have created an heirloom for your own family. Just think differently about everything. Just because you didnt buy it straight off the boat, does not mean that your life has less purpose or value than the person who pays the high price for it.

After dollar stores, yard sales, car-boot sales, estate sales and Goodwills, go to the next discount level: WalMart and similar stores. Sometimes, with their packages of three for a dollar, they are cheaper than the dollar stores. Then, graduate to Ross and TJ Max. These are items that high-end stores no longer want, and sometimes they are cheaper than the Goodwill. From there, check the web. Amazon, Alibris, Ebay, and other stores often have books and other products for 99c that are new. Even with postage, you'll have a book for under five dollars that might have cost you twenty five if you had bought it in a store. I recently acquired the book by Victoria magazine, called "At Home With Roses" which I had wanted for a coffee table book for some time, for about a dollar.


Another alternative is catalogs.Check out home furnishing and kitchen product of catalogs like Ginny's, Country Door, Tenderheart, and others, for things on sale that they are trying to get rid of before the next season. These look just as good in your home as things bought at full price and still made of the same ingredients.


To keep these things in perspective, think of the sacrifices that rich people might have made, in order to have some of the things you admire. For example, some people appear to have newer things, but they may have have more troubled children, due to the extra time they had to spend away from their families in order to make the money. Women may have to get 9-5 jobs in order to pay off the new furniture or cars. This can cause stress in their lives, and in the end, the troubles they receive from the pursuit of money, can cost them twice as much as the things they wanted.


  When women neglect their houses, their children, their marriages, their homes, they are bringing shame on the Word of God - Titus 2:5. When you neglect your home in pursuit of material things, it is a poor testimony to the teachings of our Lord, who favours those who obey him, and gives them many benefits in life. It creates more stress on your life.

Sometimes the material things come a little later, but without the sting of debt or servitude to a place of employment. Isnt it better to wait on the Lord and see if you will receive a blessing, than to abandon your home and your children, for the sake of acquiring things that impress you?


For those who are young, just starting out, in bare homes with very little, you need to know that it will not be forever. In just a short time at home, you will wonder how you acquired so much, and want to find a way to get rid of it. In photographs of earlier days when we had nothing, my children often comment that there is nothing on the walls, no pictures or paintings, and nothing on end tables or coffee tables--no lamps, books, etc.


Unless you somehow start out your home life with everything, these things have to be collected as the years go by. You can laugh at the early years when you made a dresser for your clothes from cardboard boxes, when you used a table cloth for a curtain, or a sheet for a table cloth, or a box for a dining table. These were the good years when you gloried in the fun of having your own home. It was like playing house and it did not matter if you had a real table or if you boiled water for tea in a pan rather than a kettle. It was a joy just to be home and to have peace away from the pressures of the outside world.


You can take comfort in these words:

Proverbs 15:16 -


Better is little with the fear of the LORD than great treasure and trouble therewith.


Proverbs 15:17-
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.

Proverbs 16:8-
Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right.


It may be a myth that the working woman is better off. She does not necessarily have better clothes, eat out more, have better vacations or enjoy a more luxurious life. Real luxury is a warm home that has been cared for, a nice meal at home, clean clothes and a clean house.

Notice the comparisons in these verses. They seem to be saying, "If you have to give up something like peace, love, righteousness and right living, for great riches or rich food, it is not better." Always keep your mind tuned in to the trade-off. Make sure you realize what you are giving up when you pursue something. Sometimes people do not realize that they are sacrificing their time with their children, or time away from their husbands, or time away from their homekeeping. Before you begin to envy someone for their high lifestyle, take a closer look at their lives and ask yourself if a job is really worth it. Money, the Bible says, makes itself wings, and flys away. All the things people buy, will wear out and need replacing. They will require care when they are in the home. The more you get, the more you have to wash, dust, straighten out, or put away.