I learned a lot about frugal family rituals from my husband’s parents. They raised four children on one modest income but their family is extremely close and my husband and his siblings have many fond memories of their childhood. They simply didn’t know they were poor.
One just memory is Friday night pizzas. Apparently my husband’s dad got paid every Friday. On his way home, he bought cheap frozen pizzas at the supermarket. (To this day, the whole family refers to cheap frozen pizzas as “two for fives.”) The whole family would enjoy the pizzas, then roll out sleeping bags in the living room for Friday Night Videos.
My own family’s rituals were less frequent, but every year on the first official day of fall, we would visit a local county park for a picnic and walk in the woods.
We are trying to develop our own frugal family rituals. Several nights a week, the whole family takes our dogs for a long walk. There is a woods across the street from our house and a large field behind our house. This gives us plenty of options for our walks. We talk about what we did that day or about the changing seasons or about how well the dogs flush out birds and other animals.
We recently started another family ritual. We heat with wood, which my husband chops and cuts from various locations (property owned by friends and family). For obvious reasons, I don’t like my husband in the woods alone with a chain saw so we turn wood cutting days into family outings. I pack a cooler with sandwiches, snacks and drinks and fill the thermoses with coffee. We toss some blankets in both cars (we have a pick-up truck and an SUV) and head for the woods. The girls enjoy helping carry and stack the split wood for Daddy and we get more work done. We take breaks to eat our picnic and load up both vehicles with as much wood as we can. It is fun family time with many benefits, including together time, learning the importance of hard work and heating our
Go To Page: 1 2
