Mormon Families Seem to Have a Lot of Money

FILE - This July 30, 2008, file photo, shows credit card stickers posted at a bowling alley in Palo Alto, Calif. Debit card use has been communicable up to credit cards for years, but but recently amid a weak economy has debit become the large U.Southward. revenue driver for card processors. The bill overhauling the credit menu industry is beingness touted as long-needed relief for overburdened consumers. But that doesn't mean paying your monthly pecker will suddenly be a cake walk. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

Associated Press

Editor'south note: Second of four columns on myths that discourage parents and undermine families

It is certainly true that these are hard economical times and that many families seem to need all the income that both parents can generate. But the growing sentiment that a family cannot become past on a single income is a myth, and frequently a very harmful myth that causes families to mistake wants for needs and causes parents to make choices that are not in the best interests of their kids.

At that place are a lot of variations on an old maxim: "Work expands to make full the time allotted to it." "Spending expands to fill the money available." "Needs expand to fill the expectations we allow ourselves to take."

If we all (blindly and sheep-similar) accept the myth that it is incommunicable to heighten a family on a single income, then we just send both parents off to work without much idea and without any examination of other alternatives and without counting the costs (financially and family unit-wise) of both parents being in the workplace full time.

And one huge problem that often follows is that lifestyle expands to the level of the full of both incomes; and then when husband or wife loses a chore or has to terminate working for some reason, the bills can't be paid with the one remaining income — and defalcation or other forms of agony can result.

It is far better, fifty-fifty in families that do have two incomes, to try to live on ane income, which provides ii kinds of security: 1) The second income tin go into savings and ii) If one job is lost, the family unit is not automatically in trouble.

Nosotros live in a globe where luxuries are often fabricated to look like necessities. The goal seems to exist to live extravagantly rather than to live providently. Our cocky images are much too wrapped upwards in what nosotros have and how we look. We are surrounded by advertising that has the whole goal of making us remember we need what we actually simply want.

We retrieve back on our graduate schoolhouse days when we substantially had no money for anything, simply made information technology just fine ownership food at discounted street markets in Boston, driving a 15-twelvemonth-old auto and maintaining a social life that consisted mostly of taking walks or playing games with friends. Then the minute we finished school and had jobs, we seemed to need then much more and all of a sudden our much greater supply of money seemed just as express and inadequate as the paltry sums we had as students.

1 of our sons likes to say, "There are two ways to be financially independent: 1 is to have unlimited money, and the other is to have very limited needs." (And forget about the first ane, because information technology will never happen.)

"Living inside your means" is really quite a remarkable goal, and achieving it has rewards of satisfaction and peace. And the funny thing is that it can work with very express means as well as information technology works with much more abundant means.

The young families we admire most are the ones that have deliberately and systematically limited their needs. Even if they don't have to, they live modestly, they look for deals, they avert buying anything (except their house) on credit, they perchance accept one or two credit cards for convenience and to build their credit rating, but they pay the entire rest on time every month. If both are working, they are doing it non because they demand both incomes just considering they accept decided information technology is best for them and for their kids at their current stage and situation, and they accept budgeted so they can alive on i income if they have to (or if they decide to).

When we compare these families with their more extravagant and entitled neighbors — those who want everything now, who want the same lifestyle as their much older parents, who have a gunkhole in the driveway and 2 new, leased cars in the garage, who eat out a lot and buy apparel and toys on credit — nosotros find ourselves admiring the beginning blazon, the conservative, provident immature families who really enjoy saving more than consuming.

So let'due south become over the myth that we have to accept everything and that it takes two incomes to support a family. Allow'south remember that the family is the end for the means, and that our children demand our time more than they demand what our coin can buy for them.

The Eyres' newest books are "The Entitlement Trap: How to rescue your kid with a new family unit system of choosing, earning, and ownership" and "5 Spiritual Solutions for Everyday Parenting Bug." Richard and Linda are the founders of Joyschools.com and New York Times No. ane best-selling authors who lecture throughout the world on family-related topics. Visit the Eyres anytime at www.TheEyres.com or at world wide web.valuesparenting.com.

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Source: https://www.deseret.com/2011/9/8/20214730/mormon-parenting-myth-2-one-income-not-enough-for-a-family