Labels: generous spirit, Housewives of NYC, Jill Zarin, stingy
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Colleen Coble writes romantic suspense with a strong atmospheric element. A lovable animal of some kind--usually a dog--always populates her novels. She can be bribed with DeBrand mocha truffles.
Denise Hunter writes women's fiction and love stories with a strong emotional element. Her husband says he provides her with all her romantic material, but Denise insists a good imagination helps too.
Diann Hunt writes romantic comedy and humorous women's fiction. She has been happily married forever, loves her family, chocolate, her friends, chocolate, her dog, and well, chocolate.
Cheryl Hodde writes romantic medical suspense under the pen name of Hannah Alexander, using all the input she can get from her husband, Mel, for the medical expertise. For fun she hikes and reads. Out of guilt, she rescues discarded cats. She and Mel are presently taking orders from four pampered strays.
7 Comments:
I was discussing this just last night - the stingy with the money part - not the have your own account part (which I fully agree with, BTW). I bought my dd the new Francesca Battistelli (SP?) CD and the clerk asked if I wanted to buy a pair of shoes to donate to orphans or something, and I said my kids would love to do that with their allowance. She looked at me oddly and I explained that since we buy our kids everything, they tend to use their allowance to buy things for others. The clerk made the comment that she just, within the last year, learned that people who have to earn all of their money tend to hoard it, while those who are given money tend to, in turn, give it to someone else - just like we didn't have to earn our salvation, it is given to us freely (if we ask), we share that with others much more than if we had to earn it. This was a Christian bookstore, lol. So, that is my current theory on stingy. Or the clerk's.
Wow, that's a good theory!! My parents were really generous with me and I grew up learning to tip well and appreciate that people work hard for their money.
I have my own checking account too, but only because I never know what my husband is doing with his and don't want to take the time to figure it out.
I think the $60 creme vs. the $5 moisturizer says a lot about trust. I don't always think my husband needs the more expensive equipment for whatever sport he's involved in, but I know he's not going to leave us wanting necessities in order to fulfill his desires, so I don't care what he gets.
My husband is very generous and if I think I need a 60.00 creme, he is okay with it. If I try to do without and buy the 5.00 creme for the sake of principal, he is fine until I start complaining about my skin. Then he encourages me to buy what I need. :-)
I don't know that I understand the theory about stinginess being related to working hard and generosity being related to those who are given things. I mean, I kind of get it, especially in terms of salvation.... but I think that stinginess has a whole lot more to do with holding too tightly to the things in this world. I think it is more about living in America....where I can be just as materialistic shopping at a garage sale as I can at Dillards and the blue collar workers can be more open hearted and sharing than the wealthy.
I want my girls to work hard.... I want them to give hard. But I don't know that they will really understand the blessing or importance of giving if they don't understand the first. It is kind of like OT person who deferred an offered sacrifice and said he would not offer God a sacrifice if it did not cost him something, personally.
I have a HUGE way to go in living out our finances in a way formed by the Lord, not by the world. And I won't get started in my failures with what I just wrote. But....I think stinginess is a heart issue, bottom line....or a fear issue, which goes back to our heart of trust in the Lord.
Beverly, I think we all have a huge way to go living out our lives with money and the Lord. It's probably a lifelong issue, in the sense of what do I give vs. keep, time vs. money, value vs. quality. Everything is a choice.
I'm a car/purse chick. When I met my husband I had a $45k a year job and drove a $24k car. I really haven't upped my lifestyle at all. I still want a nice car, but reasonable, I don't drive a Mercedes or anything and I want a nice purse. My current purse cost half what the one I had in college did. LOL
Oh and I have added coffee to my daily routine after kids. But if you marry a $60 creme girl and think she's going to be happy with the $5 stuff because you married her, you're going to harm your relationship. All I'm saying.
Do I have WAY too much next to Africa? We all do. We're all selfish if we compare to what the rest of the world has.
I totally don't get stinginess. I don't really think it has anything do with what you're given or earned though. My kids have worked hard and earned everything they have but they're the most generous people you'd ever meet. And I didn't grow up with a silver spoon either but it's harder for me to take than it is to give.
Maybe I'm late to the party (it's been known to happen) and I'm not totally clear on the discussion, but I think there is a difference between stingy and frugal.
My husband and I used to have THREE bank accounts - his paycheck went into the main one and every week we transferred $200 into mine and $200 into his. The main one was for bills, his was for house and car repair needs, and mine was for groceries and kid needs. We used our debit cards to make purchases. It worked out okay until things kept coming up that cost more than what I had in my account.
Let me say I'm not an expensive purse/shoes/makeup girl. I'd love those things but I know they just aren't in the cards now. But we sent our kids (one's in college now) to Catholic schools and had to deal with uniforms and shoes and so forth. Sometimes the money got pretty tight.
Then we had to put a new roof on the house and I had three hospital stays in 12 months (including thyroid cancer surgery) and our bills just got too much. We closed the separate accounts and now I take $200 out every week and pay cash for routine expenses.
I would love to be able to walk into Sephora (which I adore) and walk out with $78 products for "mature skin" but I know my $200/week doesn't allow for that. It has nothing to do with my husband thinking I'm not worth $78 or $60 or whatever. We just spent a night in a bed and breakfast and ate in a fancy restaurant, just the two of us.
It's a matter of priorities. We need to live simply now or as simply as we can and $60 skin care is hard for me to justify.
Does that make me stingy? I don't think so although it is hard for me to spend on myself when I think about how I need to care for my family with that money.
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