It feels as if everyone except the ultra-affluent is mired in an affordability crisis. Cities like New York, London, and San Francisco aside, who can afford housing, transportation, groceries, almost anywhere? Can anyone afford an out of town vacation? To quit their job and take time to find another that in the long run will be a better fit and pay more? Can you afford to start your own business? What kind of entertainment can you afford?
With more and more conventional goods becoming luxuries, what now?
Most of us who write to these prompts knew life in the previous century. Even if we started using technology early on, most Five Minute Friday writers aren't digital natives. Can you sense where I'm headed? Maybe you're already there?!
Step back a couple of decades to a backyard garden. Rent a community garden plot. Check out the farmer's market or a sidewalk vendor. Their fare may be more affordable, it's probably fresher, and you can benefit the nearby economy. Besides, can you really afford to pay Big Ag and all the supply chain intermediaries?
Step back from streaming and try hard to remember days of board games and analog puzzles together. Preparing dinner together. How's your memory? Try to recapture some of the free or inexpensive entertainment that probably included conversation and a major bonus of getting to know each other better.
What shape does your everyday take? Can you afford your current arrangement? It would be surprising to find someone who hasn't considered those concerns.
Whatever the economy does, laying the foundation of the days, the weeks, the future hopes, how about following the admonition of scripture to…
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you. Ephesians 4:32
Can you afford forgiveness? How can we not afford to forgive? Please remember: it's aways possible to forgive, yet sometimes it's impossible and/or unwise to reconcile.
Lots of ways yet to live frugally, though not in the art of forgiveness There we should never be frugal. FMF8 visitor.
ReplyDeleteForgiveness for us is free, unless we refuse to humble ourselves ... Yes! when we were struggling with our young family I often thought of my grandmother who lived out in the country and lived through the depression. I asked my mom how she survived and she said, "they saved everything." There is a skill that most people don't use because they don't have to. When we were struggling, we washed out ziplock bags and made vegetable stock from veggie scraps (clean, of course) ... things not discussed in Polite Company. But here we are! God is good!
ReplyDelete