Spend more money

Maybe I’m different. Maybe I carry old-school values because I wasn’t shielded in my childhood from the stress and challenges of frugal living.

Now, I’m not saying we were poor when I was growing up, but I’m also not saying we had a lot of money. Farmers have an economic class all their own.

My parents did well – they did a really good job of showing my siblings and me how to find value in simple living and not in the idealization of materialistic things.

We wore hand-me-downs from my cousins. I still shop the clearance rack before anything else and often put anything over $40 back on the store shelf.

Something in the back of my mind still echoes, “Um, we are going to have to watch what we spend, and I don’t know that we will be able to get everything on your Christmas lists this year.” These are the words my mom said while driving us to school one morning in 2009.

As a nine-year-old, you don’t quite understand exactly what your parent means when they say something like that, but I still remember a gut-wrenching feeling.

That same conversation was had a few more times throughout my childhood and teen years. Each time Mom mentioned it, I think that was her way of expressing her stress, maybe relieving that weight off her shoulders.

For those of our readers familiar with dairy farming, you may know it is notorious for volatile commodity prices.

I think my generation was sheltered from the reality with which our parents struggled. Some are going into mountains of debt to afford a $600,000 dollar home when maybe a $200,000 home would make more sense. What for? More bath- rooms? Roomy square-footage? A heated garage with more stalls? The perfect location one mile outside of the city limits?

I see acquaintances going on vacations two weeks after complaining about their rent prices and how gas and groceries have gone up.

It’s all about choices. A person can choose to work an extra week and pay off credit card debt or can continue making minimum payments and worry about a credit score.

Retail therapy is such a slippery slope. It starts at the push of a button online and, next thing you know, 15 packages a week are cluttering your doorstep and you’re on a first name basis with the UPS delivery person.

It seems like so many people see spending money as a way to make them happy. Granted, it is everyone’s right to spend their own money as they so choose.

Maybe it’s being limited to what we can have as a child or teen that makes us want to have everything we couldn’t then, now.

Yet here I am, saving money to purchase a group of bred heifers to invest in the future of our family farm. I’m making double payments on my student loans and car so I can get approved for a young farmer loan by 2025, if not earlier. I’m looking for grants that might be able to help us implement a grazing system for our beef herd and dairy heifers.

I find value in driving with dad to the sale barn and watching a group of steers walk off the trailer, making bets on what the weights will be.

It’s best to say that I don’t measure success by how big my house is or how fancy my car is, but rather how much I listened, laughed, learned and changed.