Parable of "The Ant and the Grasshopper"
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long,
building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances
and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm
and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so
he dies out in the cold.
Earlier in the week my post titled Are You an Apple Farmer or a Potato Farmer? received some great feedback so I thought I'd continue my posts this week with the question, are you an ant or a grasshopper? I believe this question is especially important today as our government and most Americans show real concern about where our economy is headed. We're approaching "winter" both literally and figuratively and few have shown the tendencies of the ant in the way that we live our lives.
Are you spending every cent you make? Are you spending more than you make? Are you saving for your "winter?"
Yesterday's post about cutting off our cable TV is just one small step that our family is making to simplify our lives and to accelerate our "laying up of supplies". We're also a couple of months away from being completely out of debt and have an Emergency Fund (I'll discuss this more in detail later in the week) that's growing every paycheck. We're taking are these steps and many others to improve out situation like the parable above illustrates.
Some other things that we're in the process of implementing in our household are:
1. Canceling collision coverage on our 2 cars (they both have 200K+ on them)
2. Reading up on gardening so that we can raise some of our own fruits and vegetables this next year (more on our gardening "experiment" this year in a future post)
3. Purchasing a professional mixer so we can begin to make more of our own breads, etc.
4. Purchasing a deep freeze so we can take advantage of sales at the grocery store and freeze some of our homemade food.
What changes are you making to become more like an ant? Are you concerned about the state of our economy and where things potentially are heading? Join the discussion!
Related posts:
Stumble It!
It's been a while since I've heard that story. I suppose it rings more true today than in a while. We don't even know if it's winter yet or just fall. I guess it makes since to always be preparing as if winter is two weeks away.
I personally just started saving this past summer.
I opened my first trading portfolio about a month ago, and I just made my first contribution to an "emergency" fund.
I'm still a baby any, I suppose.
But, hey, we all have to start somewhere.
Posted by: Caleb | November 22, 2008 at 08:00 AM