Years ago, families lived more simply and much more frugally than the average American household. Today, the Amish continue to live simply and frugally, and as more families experience the difficulties of the lingering recession – it’s becoming more commonplace to look for new ways to live on less.
The Amish are careful with their finances. They are taught to save money from the time they are children, most are entrepreneurs and most have family and friends and churches to assist them if they fall onto difficult times.
Here are some ideas for living simply and more frugally – things we can learn from the Amish:
Start Saving As a Child: if you’re an adult that didn’t save when you were a child, unfortunately you can’t turn back time and do it all over again! But if you have children of your own, you can teach them to save money from a young age. A good way to do this is to allow your child to keep 10% of any money they earn or receive as gifts and save the rest in a bank account for the child when they turn 18 or 21.
Live at Home: In Amish families, most people live with their family until they get married. They work and help contribute to the family expenses, but it is far less expensive for everyone involved to not have a family with multiple mortgage or rent, multiple utility expenses, etc.
Own Your Own Business: If you own a business as a family, you can employ your own children for much less than it takes to hire workers. Many times you can work a small business around a full time job, making it possible to increase your income.
Get Group Health Insurance: Many Amish families contribute to the church for health care premiums. The amount each person pays is based on the age and number of family members. The money is placed into a group fund, and if any member of the church has health expenses that cannot be paid on their own, money is pulled from the fund to help pay for the health care expenses. While you will be hard pressed to find a church doing this outside Amish country, there are many group health insurance plans that exist to help keep premiums more manageable for all participants.
Don’t be Wasteful: Use what you have rather than buying new whenever possible, don’t waste things. You can often make do with what you already have, but we’re so used to running out and buying something new whenever we need it that we forget to re-purpose items we have to fulfill other needs.
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