Materialism VS. Thriftiness

I stumbled upon a great study from Peggy at HomeMAKING, she challenges us with these questions:

The Thrifty Wife: Using money wisely and cutting where able

Do we enjoy yard sales, thrift sales, Goodwill Shops?
Do we use coupons when we can?
Are we wise shoppers?
Do we make a grocery list and stick to it?
Do we make as much as we know how to from scratch to save money?
Can we accept hand me downs?
Do we try to pinch corners where we can to save some of our husbands hard earned money?

Here are my thoughts:

American wives today need to be more frugal. We need to plan ahead and better organize our homes. We often buy too much in the name of saving our husbands money. Instead I think our husbands would appreciate if we just did not spend so much to begin with. We justify our purchases by insisting it was an irresistable sale--saving our family loads of money but later finding that we hardly used the item at all and now we are wondering why it is taking up precious space.

What if we just lived simply? If we just drowned out the voices of the world to purchase more and more and instead listened to the still quiet voice of God convicting us to be better managers of our homes and children? We manage our time quite inefficiently and squander so much of it on trivial pursuits. Shopping is a sport in America and it seems we are training for the Olympics!

What would it be like to come home to a simple home--a simple meal--a wife who didn't have to spend the entire day managing and decluttering their possessions or spent hours accumulating more and more. She had clarity of mind to focus on her husband and not that mess that was accumulating throughout the home from her shopping sprees. Dinner would be on time, she didn't over buy on food because she knew just what she had in the pantry (she even used some leftovers because she knew what was in the fridge and didn't want to waste perfectly good food) and she actually preplanned meals so she wouldn't be put in the last minute 'what are we going to do for dinner' predicament. She would have more time to spend with the children because she wasn't gone 'shopping' all day (all over town or on-line) and her home would be ordered because she would have spent time at home and not in the mall.

This boils down to self-control. Self control to stop being out-of-control 21st century consumers and buying into the propaganda of retailers who insist that we need to have it all. We need to not believe the lies of insisting we need the _____ for this reason or other especially if we cannot afford it.

I believe we would find true happiness because we would learn the true meaning of contentment. Scriptures state '"Godliness with contentment is great gain." and Paul had learned how to be content in every situation--having plenty and having nothing. When will we learn this as wives and mothers? It is our time to start saying "No."

Shopping can become an addiction that give us a temporary 'high' that eventually ends in discontentment---but clearly our responsibility as Christian wives and mothers is to redeem, esteem and model the biblical virtue of contentedness.