“Families cutting back” stories have become a little too perennial in this recession, but I liked this one about the Smith family of Schenectady. Why? Because so many of these stories seem to focus on families that might have to – shudder — send their children to the YMCA day camp instead of Camp Horseysnob or cut down to two Starbucks runs a day. Not something you can work up a big wad of sympathy over, you know?
The Smith family didn’t have a ton off cash and indulgences to begin with – both work hourly retail jobs, and dad works part time. The indulgences they cut were planned amusement park trips this summer and their Friday night dinners out, which were replaced with secondhand bikes, a swingset, and family cooking lessons taught by mom.
As a freelance writer married to a social worker in one of the hardest hit areas for this recession, I’ve been finding it pretty hard to work up sympathy for people who are cutting out things that are really high-end luxuries that no one needs. And on the other end of the spectrum some of these stories are “OMG how are people surviving --can I scrape up a check for the food bank -- thank God we still have health insurance and a house.”
I liked this story because this is a really relatable family, and they are focusing on how to maintain the right things – time together and getting to know their kids. They are, like many of us, splurging in order to save; they bought a Wii, for example, to stave off the temptation to hit the mall or the movie theater or rainy days. It seems to be the way a lot of us are struggling through – we spend a little to splug more long term money drains, we pull ourselves in closer to home, and we focus on family time together, not how expensively that time is spent.
Where is your family splurging and saving? And what are you focusing on as you make those decisions?
