I don't get manicures

   I don't get manicures, or pedicures.  I don't buy jewelry, or pay to get my hair colored. I don't drive an expensive car or even a new car. I don't go on vacation, I rarely go to restaurants without a drive through. I don't buy anything thats not on sale, I rarely buy myself clothes that are not second hand. My children pass clothes down and then to friends. My husband and I rarely have a date and have only on three occasions in 10 years spent the night away from our children. When things break we don't buy a new one, we fix the broken one and if that fails we buy a used replacement, as a last resort we scour the internet and sale ads for the best deal on whatever it was or we live without it.
   We don't buy our kids whatever they want. Most things in our house are repainted, refinished, recycled or handmade.
   I think it is safe to say we are not frivolous. Could we do better? Yes. Couldn't we all. There are times we buy Sonic drinks that are not half price or pay full price for a movie ticket but for the most part we really try, to save and scrimp and live below our means.
   Does that mean we can live comfortably with our income? No. We are recovering from a loss of income and a bankruptcy, we have six kids. I can't imagine things ever being easy financially for us.
   We sacrifice a lot, we say no a lot, we plan and budget and pray. But the one thing we will not sacrifice is our marriage, our family or our time together.
    People often wonder why my husband doesn't get another full time job or why I don't work a second job to help out.  While we are looking at, revising, and making new plans every day, the one thing that remains the same is always, if we have to be gone 24 hours a day and leave our children in the hands of strangers, give up our time together and let our marriage fall apart, then it isn't worth it.
  Living without manicures, new cars, jewelry no problem.  Raising 6 kids alone while my husband works 24/7 and we still barely scrape by, no thank you.
   So judge us all you want. Pick and pull at our decisions, all you want. We will get back on our feet, we will move forward, as a family. We will do this together.
   So when people ask me why I don't get pedicures or why my hair always looks so frazzled I just smile. Because I know those things don't matter, what matters is my children can have a mommy and daddy who set aside all the petty things in life to make time for them.