When I packed my hospital bag before having a baby last summer, I tucked my laptop in along with everything else. I thought I might squeeze in some work between contractions, or when the baby was sleeping. Or something. (I'll pause while you all laugh.)
The laptop actually did make it out of the bag once while I, already bleary from lack of sleep, held my baby with one arm and worked with the other. It didn't last long and I will leave it at home if I have another baby.
I could tell you of many other times through my working years. I have worked on my way to vacations, on vacations, in the middle of the night, in the car, and at other inconvenient times. I have also usually had at least two jobs for the last 20 years.
But I have also denied myself by what I didn't buy or what I didn't do. I said no to a trip to France in my early 20s. I drive an old car when a minivan might be more convenient. When I was in college, I dismissed going to visit a doctor unless I absolutely had to.
(Compared to what some of you have to deny yourself, these seem silly. I am sorry for this.)
To be completely open with you, I have struggled for years with the balance between sacrificing now for a future payoff and enjoying life now, just in case I can't enjoy it later. Sometimes, I think I have figured it out; sometimes I know I haven't.
To Sacrifice, or Not to Sacrifice? “How Much?” is the Question.
Sometimes a post here or a reader comment will trigger my struggle again. Whenever Honey Smith posts about her student debt and buying a house (or even getting a massage), someone makes comments. Then I wonder how I would handle Honey's situation. How much would I sacrifice to get out of large student loans?
There is no doubt that our prior sacrifices have yielded some good results:
- A debt-free college education for me and paid-off student loans for my husband.
- Our consumer debt is only a manageable mortgage now (although I once had a car loan for 26 months).
- No credit card debt.
- My husband could afford to take a pay cut to start his dream job.
- Both my husband and I have very flexible jobs that average out to part-time over the year. That translates to one or both of us can attend our children's school events, be home with the kids, etc.
- We have adequate balances in our savings accounts.
- We have adequate life insurance policies.
- We take our family to the doctor.
- We go on one vacation per year.
But there are things we don't do. We aren't funding our children's college accounts at this time. While we dumped money into our retirement accounts when we were in our 20s, we have had to back down our retirement contributions now. If we worked more, we could contribute more to our retirement accounts or our children's college accounts. But then we wouldn't get to spend as much time with them, and our lives would be more stressful.
Even though I still make sacrifices by cutting back on sleep occasionally to get projects done, I am mostly satisfied at the balance I have in my life. For now.
When you are in debt, you have to save more or earn more (or both). To earn more, you will most likely have to cut something out of your current life to make room for a new job, more responsibility, or a longer commute. To save more, you may have to downsize your house, sell something you love, or buy food you don't really like. You may even have to avoid the dentist, doctor, cut back on retirement savings, or some other more drastic measure.
These changes can definitely affect your health and your relationships with those you love. How do we decide?
How much are you willing to sacrifice to meet your financial goals? For how long are you willing to make those sacrifices? What will you never sacrifice to meet your financial goals? Have you ever struggled to reconcile the present you and the future you?
Author: Lisa Aberle
Lisa Aberle is a college professor by day and a freelance writer by night. Always an aspiring writer with an interest in money, she once ironically misspelled “mortgage” during a spelling bee. Most of her current adventures take place on the four-acre mini-farm she shares with her husband in the rural Midwest (where she writes with gel pens whenever possible).
Glad I’m not the only one who works on vacation and in the car :)! On my last flight (to vacation) I wrote the entire time–but it felt like a great use of time.
My husband and I have sacrificed what a lot of folks would term ‘material comforts.’ We have a 19-yr-old car, used furniture, used clothes, and we don’t spend any money on entertainment–no eating out, no movies, etc. But, it’s all in service of our goal to retire early to a homestead in the woods. And so, it doesn’t really feel like a sacrifice to us. It just feels like we’re working concertedly towards a goal.
We are very fortunate in that we’ve never had to sacrifice necessary medical procedures or healthy foods. Those are both non-negotiable to us. We’re able to go to the dentist and doctor regularly and buy organic fruits and veggies to eat. I consider us wealthy to be able to do those things without a second thought.
This is exactly how I feel. While I don’t take my frugality to the same level as the Frugalwoods, a lot of people would say my lifestyle is one of sacrifice. (I also drive a 19 year old car, for instance). But it doesn’t feel like a sacrifice to me. It’s just my normal lifestyle. For me, every dollar I put into savings account and retirement accounts means I’m that much closer to not being dependent on the whims of our very fickle and often harsh world of paid employment. That so-called sacrifice is most definitely worth it to me.
We’ve given up a lot over the years to be a single income family. But when we decide to give something up, it doesn’t really feel like a sacrifice. More just a choice to live with less to live more.
I think “sacrifice” and “non-negotiables” are relative. They depend on income level and who the sacrifices are for. I know that my sacrifices were different when the household income was less than $25,000 vs. when it was triple that. I also know that I sacrificed more for the sake of my children than I would have ever done for myself as a single person. However, I like to look at it more as “delayed gratification” than sacrifice. To me, the semantics matter. It means I might not get what I want now but I can have it later. Then it’s a win/win situation.
I fall into AMW’s camp when thinking about sacrifice. However, if I had the income for occasional splurges like eating out, or larger splurges like vacations, my husband I will indulge. This is as long as we are accruing any debt by doing it. It’s not stopping us from paying off debt, and we can continue to save. We let those three things guide us.
Sacrifice is a loaded term with nothing but negative attached to it. I have never sacrificed. I have decided my priorities over and over again, and chosen based on the desired end.
Language is a powerful thing, and while many terms and phrases are as common as houseflies, the real question should always be “what behavioral changes have you made since you established your financial goals that occasionally/often get scorned by those without similar/any financial goals?”
I totally agree about the importance of language and love your comment! I think it’s much easier to save when you’re content with your lifestyle.
“I think it’s much easier to save when you’re content with your lifestyle.”
I could not have said it better, Beth.
Sometimes what’s called sacrifice becomes something far better. I spent two summers whacking weeds to make small investments. It was hot and long hours, but it has helped more than can say at this point.
When you have little and are limited, you do what you can. And, if real opportunity comes your way, you learn to see or find it.
I think sacrifice is the correct term, and I think I have a completely new understanding of that term since having children. I have stayed home with them for almost 8 years now, which means things like big trips and extra mortgage payments are not an option. I’m fine with those sacrifices or trade-offs. I’m even fine with not being able to save for their college educations as I think someday they’ll appreciate their dad and I having focused on retirement savings rather than planning to live with them in our old age.
There are some decisions, though, that I really struggle with. In our case, we live a day’s drive from one side of the family, and across the country from the other. Those family members do not have the kind of income that allows them to visit us very often, so if we want our children to know their grandparents and other extended family members, we have to save up and either fly a family of five or plan a cross-country road trip that is cheaper monetarily but extremely painful psychically. When we’re past baby- and toddlerhood, the drives will be easier. For now, it’s a true sacrifice whichever way we choose. We forego other trips or fun outings to save for visiting family, and we take a pretty big hit to the budget and/or time to travel and recover. Sure, the kids can talk on the phone and Skype, but it isn’t the same thing. We don’t plan to move for a number of reasons, so this is the situation we’re faced with for now. It’s hard whatever we choose: work on the house and skip a year of seeing family; decide the kids really need some time with grandparents.
Obviously, this is a middle-class problem, and as a great many people over the years have said if I simply went back to work, we wouldn’t face this issue. But we’re some of those throwbacks who really think one of us should be with the kids while they’re young. Like much of life, it’s a “best” rather than a “perfect” decision, and hopefully we’re bumping along in a way that will allow our kids to have a great upbringing and their parents to have a comfortable life now and in retirement…at least that’s the plan!
I think what Old Guy is getting at is that a lot of things we “give up” for our financial goals aren’t hardships at all — it’s cutting back or not indulging in non-necessities.
For instance, I almost stopped for take out after work tonight but decided to eat leftovers instead. Sacrifice? Hardly. It didn’t make much of a difference to me. I also don’t like to travel all that much, so not taking a yearly trip abroad isn’t a big deal. I won’t pretend that’s on a par with the time, energy and money parents give up for their children.
Currently we’re sacrificing what sometimes feels like a lot by living on a school bus with our four kids to reach our goal of building a house on our property this year. There are definitely days when I question whether or not it’s worth it, but it’s not forever and I think (hope… pray…) that looking back on this time we will be glad that we did it!
Everyone has different levels of what they are willing to sacrifice. Is giving up cable TV a sacrifice? Maybe not for you but it might be for someone else who absolutely LOVES watching TV. I have made changes, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say sacrifices. Most of them don’t feel like sacrifices at all because I know that I’m doing it for something that means more than what I’m giving up.
Agree 110%.
We live in a modest house because, well, we really don’t want a big house.
We don’t take exotic vacation trips because they stress us out, quite honestly.
But we will not cut back on what we give to our church.
And my wife and I both love cars. While we are not making reckless decisions by any means, our choices of transportation probably seem strange for a single-income family with two elementary school age kids (me = 2013 Mustang GT and wife = 2014 BMW X3). I am sure we get talked about, but people fail to consider that we’re spending less in other areas that we don’t care as much about, and the cars are something from which we derive a lot of enjoyment.
So – like you say, it’s all what you consider to be a “real” sacrifice. I would give up TV and my smart phone long before I gave up supporting our church’s ministry or driving a cool car while I am still young enough to enjoy it. Plenty of folks will not agree with me, I am sure.
Absolutely, its about your own personal priorities.I pinch pennies to stay home with the kids and to travel. I don’t really care about cars or cable tv or the latest fashions. Recently though I was feeling guilty about talking up an upcoming vacation with a friend who is having financial difficulties and my husband pointed out that if she actually cooked and didn’t have to have all the latest Apple toys she could take a vacation too! He’s right but so is she, that’s just what is important to her.
Also, our thrifty lifestyle is going to pay off big in a few years when my husband retires before he’s 50. There were many years I felt broke and wanted to stop 401k payments for a while or take on some credit card debt to get by but we just figured it out (because we had no other choice ,really) and soon our hard work and determination will be worth all the hard choices .
I would never cut out doctors appointments or taking care of your health. That’s important. We cut back on things like-not going to the movie theater. Instead we wait until it’s in the Redbox. We cut back on not eating out so much. We do free activities & rent books from the library not purchase them. There are so many ways to cut back if you do little things here and there. We also stay up on our bills & make sure we are paying the least amount of money for things like Electricty, etc…
I think sacrifice is an appropriate term. Especially once we have children, most of us face far more stark trade-offs financially speaking than we did before children. That isn’t to say we don’t feel many of those sacrifices are worth making, but they still may cause us pain or be a real either-or rather than simply a case of deferred gratification.
In our case, we live on a single income, and that single income is lower than it could be if the paying job were less flexible and family-friendly. We face many of the same trade-offs as other families with kids: putting less into retirement and nothing into college savings, making less headway on paying off the mortgage–fine, we feel those trade-offs are worth it and relatively straightforward decisions.
Our big area of internal conflict is in visiting family who live across the country and can’t visit us very often. Flying a family of 5 is prohibitive and puts a huge hole in our budget. Driving cross-country is far cheaper, but with a baby in tow, quite painful many in other ways (we all still have nightmares about the last trip). I feel either way we decide, we’re sacrificing something–either money we could put to use making ourselves more financially secure and time spent making needed home repairs, or a closer relationship between our kids and their grandparents and other relatives. I don’t think there is a “right answer” here; it’s simply a “best we can do” given our current lifestyle. But I do think of it as a sacrifice–granted, a middle-class American sacrifice–either way. My two cents, anyway!
How about no vacation – in almost a decade? Or no time off work when you’re a contractor and every minute counts? Living with chronic illnesses I can’t avoid the doctor (though I should probably take more time off work). Its always a juggling and balancing act that’s going to be different for everyone.
I honestly don’t think the above mentioned and other sacrifices has paid off. When caring for your health is a full-time job, you’re always running behind the 8-ball if you’re not well off or a high earner.
The things we sacrifice don’t really seem like big deals for us. I don’t know if I’ve just brainwashed myself over the years that those things don’t matter, but I really believe it now, so it must have worked. I don’t get my hair and nails done. I don’t shop for clothes, and our kids wear hand me downs or things I find at consignment shops. We rarely eat out (mostly because it isn’t much fun with three kids). We drive older cars that are paid for. We don’t have iPhones or iPads, or iPods. We have a very old desktop computer, but it does the job.
Basically, the only things we spend money on are things that really affect our quality of life or save us lots of time. We have stopped caring about the Jones and it has really enabled us to be financially secure and live the lifestyle we enjoy. I stay at home with the kids, we have 6 months in our emergency fund, very sizeable retirement accounts, modest college savings for our 3 young children, and no debt except for our mortgage.
I could go back to work and make a very good salary, but the stress of doing laundry and chores all weekend and not being as involved with my children wouldn’t be worth it. I was just thinking today that I am very lucky because I have a handsome lunch date every day of the week–my 3 year old son. 🙂 I know I won’t ever have a chance to spend this much time with my kids again, so I try to enjoy it, even if it means not eating out more or going to Disney World.
Working during a vacation isn’t a sacrifice, it’s plain “doing it wrong”. If I’m not going to relax then there was no point in even going anywhere. Especially if you’re childless and the vacation is all about your own enjoyment, and if you have children it doesn’t help the kids enjoyment if they can see that you’re not truly involved in the fun.
It’s also foolish to donate money to charity if you’re having trouble making ends meet. You need to take care of yourself before you try to care for others, otherwise you may very well not be in a position to care for much longer.
It may sound harsh to some but I feel that my point of view is quite reasonable.
I agree with you on the vacation thing. I’m a bit more ambivalent about church/charitable giving.
i have been working tirelessly to improve my financial status juggling through jobs but now focusing fully on my blog.and i would work every moment and not necessarily sleep but rest then back to work to achieve my financial goals
I wonder if we are truly sacrificing enough. I mean I have attempted to cut my lifestyle down, but I know I could cut out more going out to eat. However, I am not sure how much my wife would want to sacrifice. I am truly the saver and she is the spender. I don’t think she would be down (and I have asked her) with cutting back to bare-bones sacrificing. In fact, if I think about it I am not sure I even sacrifice that much. Maybe I don’t even know what that means, which is why I like reading personal finance blogs because I get a range of ideas that can influence my thinking.
For most, it’s not as bad as they thought it would be to sacrifice, and it doesn’t last forever … more people just need to bite the bullet and get started!
After bills.. I split the money 50% saving.. 50% spending.
You never know how long you will live.
You can enjoy life and save for retirement too!
Like others here, I feel like I sacrifice in the eyes of other people. Although I do work alot and am frugal in the general sense, I have a strict set of non-negotiables:
1) I don’t work on designated breaks or vacations
2) I don’t compromise on my sleep or health
3) I don’t put family 2nd to work or financial goals (though I admit I do flake out on friends and a social life, but I’m working on that)
I “sacrifice” now because I want something better, so I don’t really consider that a sacrifice. I will be “sacrificing” further when I attempt to get a 3rd job in about 6 months. I won’t get to see my friends and family hardly at all, but that just means things have to be more planned in advance as even though my daily schedule will be full, I have plenty of vacation time and can take time off as needed. Also, I know it will be temporary as I am gearing up to take another, longer hiatus from working altogether for 2 years while I am back at school.
I don’t sacrifice to the point that I hurt myself or others, or waste time on something that is not important to me or furthering me or my goals. I might become obsessed with something I enjoy doing, yes…but that’s a different story.
During my 20’s I got into consumer debt and I paid the price by sacrificing to pay off the debt. After learning my lesson I’ve now turned the tables and now sacrifice instant gratification for future financial wellbeing. I am prepared to make sacrifices if I am sure it will make a tremendous difference to my life in the future.
It’s funny that I am stumbling across this post. Just today some coworkers and I were talking about this. With my current job I work anywhere from 50-80 hours a week, and have lived frugally my entire life (I’m only 21……..I’ve also never had a vehicle newer than myself) . But, honestly the sacrifices that I make now don’t bother me so much. I know that it will be worth it one day and it really has already paid off!
Great post by the way!:D
Every decision has a trade off and always there is sacrifice involved. You sacrifice one thing to pay for another, which is just the opportunity costs associated with spending your money in one place or doing one thing instead of something else. For me the future benefits of becoming debt free (and continuing to live debt free) are far greater than keeping payments around like a pet.
As another person commented above, you can enjoy your life and whatever situation you are in when you have contentment. Enjoying life does not always need to include spending money.
The way I look at it I’m sacrificing some spending now so I’ll have more to spend later. I don’t think most people do that. They’d rather enjoy today only. I guess that’s OK, but it leaves a person on the treadmill indefinitely. With each dividend stock purchase I buy myself a tad more freedom.