Our "simple" life

The Lake District, England

I am one of those people who loves rustic, hard work and totally romanticizes things like farm living. Some would call it the simple life. Although "simple" and "easy" are often used interchangeably in most language settings, they are not interchangeable when "life" is tacked on after them. The simple life is mostly never the easy life. That is why I could never actually run a farm, but I might tackle a few chickens someday.

I think everyone has their own version of the simple life. Whether you make your own clothes but drive an electric car or you buy your clothes but grow your own food, everyone has a little something that alludes to ye olden days.

To name a few, mine consists of making food from scratch, cloth diapering my babies, and line drying clothes—all of which I actually enjoy. (I wash our dishes by hand too, but that is not a choice. We just don't have a dishwasher). But those things take time and effort, and when you feel pressed for both, all those "simpler" things end up being harder things.

And that's about when I need to take a deep breath and "rebalance."

Despite my overall delight in it, our family lives a "simple" life mostly because it's a frugal life. We could spend more and buy things that make life easier now, but for us that would be a step backward because we would no longer be saving for our future.

The simple life may be a harder life, but it's a good life. We have money for everything we need, a little for what we want, and plenty in savings for everything we dream.

So here's to our simple life.

What's yours?