How Might We Simplify???

Before I get into my "insight of the day", I gotta give a quick shout out to my awesome Jono for pulling off an AMAZING anniversary weekend! For posterity's sake, here's a rundown of what he cooked up for me:
1) He told me Thursday morning to pack an overnight bag. No clues, just the promise of a childless night's sleep.
2) After dropping the kids off at his aunt's house, he took me to Mary Mac's Tea Room in Atlanta for the most delish and filling dinner I think I have ever had. We have been wanting to check it out for quite a while now, and let's just say it didn't disappoint.
3) Then he drove me down many mysterious (read:sketchy) roads until we came to...The Starlight Drive-In Movie Theater!!!! This has been a dream of mine for. ever. In fact, the way my dear Jono proposed to me was by setting up our own drive-in theater out in the woods. We watched "Inception" which was good / a little brain tiring.
4) We finished off the night by checking into the Hyatt which, as I mentioned before, assured us of a whole night without a certain four year old climbing in bed with us.
5) Friday, we got out of bed at around ten o'clock (yesssss!), got dressed, and proceeded to hit up every store in the Atlanta/Buckhead area that I've been wanting to shop at. Most of them were at Atlantic Station (I think I could live there...minus the cost of living), and of course we made the obligatory stop at IKEA!!!
So that was our fun and exciting "9 years of love and fun" celebration. Now on to insightful things. Every now and then, have the "how can we simplify" talk. With your hubby if you're married and with yourself if you're not. Tonight when Jono got home from work, the girls and I were cleaning their room and we had a bag that we were putting stuff in that we/they wanted to give away to some of the refugee kids that we visit. I know, we just had a yard sale. But I'm on a SIMPLIFY kick. And I had been thinking all day, "What can we do without? What are we spending money on that we could nix and create some margin as well as up our giving?". Well, clearly this was a place that God had led my thinking, because as soon as Jono saw us he said, "I've been thinking all day that we need to find some stuff to give away...I just wanna simplify." So we started evaluating everything.
Before I share all the ideas that we came up with, I think it's important to say a couple of things. First of all, I am not one of those people who are like, "Oh, you have a tv in your house? We don't own one of those terrible contraptions.". In fact, that person always gets on my nerves. So the ways that we may choose to simplify may not be the ways that you choose to, and that's cool with me. I am not the "You're living too extravagantly" police. On the flip side of that (actually, I don't know if it's on the flip side, but whatever), just because I feel led or convicted to make one change doesn't give everyone else the right to point out, "Well, if you're gonna do that, then shouldn't you do this too?". For instance, me deciding to give up acrylic nails in no way opens the door for someone to say, "So, I guess since you're being so holy you're not ever gonna color your hair again either.". Can't we all just be excited for each other's baby steps and not expect one little sacrifice to immediately turn into moving to Africa to live in a hut? (which, by the way, I would do in a heartbeat).
Ok. So back to the talk. It takes a lot of intentionality to come up with things you can give up, because we are immersed among people who actually have MORE than us. The initial thought is that we should not be getting rid of stuff, but figuring out how we can save up to send our kids to gymnastics (because every other kid in the world is signed up for something, right?) or get a new stainless steel fridge because our old black and white one that came used with the house is just embarrassing. But if you dig past that gut level, and stop comparing yourself to the bubble of rich people that you're surrounded by (which, by the way, American=rich), you can probably find a few things.
First of all, we decided to change our satellite package to the cheapest one that only includes the local channels. Right now, we only have the one right above that, and since we don't have HGTV or TLC now, it's not much of a sacrifice to me. Jono's actually gonna check on us getting rid of the satellite all together and buying a hi def antenna. Then we'd have no more money spent on the tube each month!
Second, I brought up the car issue. I am really not a car person, evidenced by my driving a minivan. I have never had the need to have a cool looking car. I just want a big one that I can cram all my kiddos in that works. It doesn't even have to have a/c. I've been driving around without that since August. So I asked Jono if he would look to see if there is a mini out there that would cost less than the one we have now. This is sort of a sacrifice to me because I do love all my buttons that make loading up a little easier. Both sliding doors and the trunk will open and close with the press of a button which is wonderful when you're coming out of the grocery store pushing a buggy and carrying a baby and dragging a whiny kid. I know that by going cheaper that I'll probably lose those features, but I keep reminding myself that I'm in the top 2% of wealthiest people in the world just by having a vehicle at all. It's a constant perspective check.
I then proceeded to tread on Jono's territory and said that we are paying too much for him a car when he works less than 1 minute from his place of employment. I even think that we could pull off being a one-car family. Can you imagine the money we could save?! On days like yesterday when I was home all day, he could have the van. If I was going to need it, we could all just load up and run Daddy to work. Or he could walk, which he scoffs at. Usually if he goes anywhere during the day it's with someone, so he could catch a ride. Anyway, I'm not sure that I've talked him into that yet, but he is going to look into trading down both of our cars.
Me and my girls agreed that from now on every time we go visit our sweet refugee friends that we will take them a gift. A toy, some clothes, a jacket...something. God didn't give us all this stuff to hoard, right?
I even mentioned during our talk the possibility of downsizing our house. I've always been convinced that one day we would upgrade, but lately God has changed my heart on that. I've stopped wishing for a bigger kitchen or a finished basement. And then tonight during our convo, I was like, "Hey, what if we sold our house and got an older, smaller one?". Jono didn't seem to think that we could make that big of a difference, and plus we really have to stay true to our home study for now anyway. But I'm just excited that I have grown from being discontent with my house and wanting more to being willing to live in less. That's a HUUUUGE step of growth for me.
And, back to the hair thing, I AM going naturale this fall and winter to save some money. And everytime I look in the mirror and think "BLAH", I'll remind myself that all these little changes are making it possible for us to have a bigger giving budget. That really does make it worth it.