Everyday Choices

So, I have this fantasy about my frugal self.

It goes something like this:

In the morning, I wake up to bright sunshine in my impeccably decorated, spare-but-cozy house. I sit down at the kitchen table with my very sweet, cheerful children, and we eat hearty breakfasts of toasted (homemade!) whole wheat bread with butter and (homemade!) jam, and sides of fresh fruit. While we eat, I take my time drinking a cup of tea from an adorable thrifted mug.

We spend our day playing—outside!—with nary a Target to be seen, and when we come back indoors, we do crafts and play board games and read together and I never lose my temper. When my husband gets home, we talk without interruptions, and for dinner I always make something fabulous with cheap ingredients, and the children eat everything served to them. They go to bed early. Jason and I spend our evening talking and cuddling and reading library books and enjoying a scrumptious (homemade! From cheap ingredients!) dessert before falling asleep under clean sheets.

Okay, so there are a lot of deluded fantasies going on there besides the frugal one.

What really happens is more like this:

I wake up in the morning when I hear Simone crying “Daddy!” I grudgingly get out of bed, and it takes about 40 minutes to sweet-talk her onto the potty and then into the kitchen for breakfast. At this point she’s starving and grumpy and I usually end up plopping her down on the couch (in front of the television!) with some food while I rub my eyes and put the kettle on. I often do give her a delicious homemade breakfast like the one described above, but half the time she just licks the jam from the bread and gives the rest to the dog. I eat my own breakfast in a hurry before Simone can steal it from me, and I gulp down my tea without enjoying it. Eventually I shower.

I spend my day playing with Simone, fielding tantrums, and often wasting several hours browsing stuff I want on the internet. Sometimes I make a fabulous dinner from cheap ingredients, but sometimes I make a disgusting dinner from cheap ingredients, and then we get takeout. Either way, there are dirty dishes and Simone doesn’t go to bed “on time” (whatever that means…) and sometimes Jason and I have those hallowed evenings together but just as often as not we sit on opposite ends of the couch groaning about how exhausted we are.

My life isn’t perfect.

No one will ever mistake it for a magazine spread.

But when I think about it…so many of my fantasies about myself, and my life, are doable. Maybe not the part where Simone is always cooperative and the dog never starts barking for no reason at 5:30 a.m., but the parts where I slow down.

Where I sip my tea instead of guzzle it.

Where I turn off my computer, especially the tabs with “stuff I want,” and play with my kids.

Where I put off that trip to Target for just one more day, because it probably isn’t necessary in the first place.

Where I keep an emergency meal in the pantry, to avoid getting fast food when what I cook turns out gross.

Where I buy home goods from thrift stores instead of ordering them from Amazon, or better yet, be content with what I already have.

So many of my perfect life fantasies are sabotaged by myself. I don’t do it on purpose, of course, but I want to be more intentional about all of those everyday choices. And I might as well start now.