Living for Today and Tomorrow

I love my own mother dearly, she had me late in life and worked all but my infancy. My mother wasn't domestic,she liked to cook but wasn't good at it (she can decorate fancy cakes however...strange), shes not a very good housekeeper, but was a wonderful affection shower and supporter. I was raised by my grandmother mostly, I kind of got a 1950's upbringing in the 1990's. Someone once came to my house and commented that it looked just like my Grandma's and if they didn't know better they would think a 80 year old women lived there...ahh thanks,I think. As a result of all this I knew when it came time for me to have kids I would stay home with them and raise them myself! I knew this even before I got married and when I was dating seriously I made sure that my husband to be agreed with this. Is it easy? no, we have learned to live on one income which at times meant we only had one car so I was at home a lot when he was working (my sacrifice), vacations are not the trips to Europe that my husband enjoyed every year and they are few and far between (RevDr's sacrifice) our kids don't take dance or art classes (their sacrifice) we also don't eat out often (which we all love). You know something, when you almost never eat out when you do it's a real treat, my 5 year old gets more excited about Waffle House then I ever did about Red Lobster. We take more joy in the special things. Once a week I serve a really super dinner sometimes it's strip steak with shrimp. I can make two surf and turf dinners for about $8. You can but a lot of hot dogs for $8 but it helps in not feeling deprived. I also don't want to spend my retirement on take out, does that sound silly?? If I spend any "extra" money on take out and save none then that’s what I've done to MYSELF I shouldn't expect any government to help me. Do I have it "hard" absolutely not! Hard isn't using cloth diapers, it's having to beat those cloth diapers on a scrub board or put them through a wringer washer. Having my washing machine doing a few extra loads a week is very easy. Hard is sewing clothing yourself because you HAVE to, not shopping at consignment stores or accepting hand me downs. Our Grandmothers never had their own car, in the 1950's it was very unusual for a middle class family to own more then one car, it was also unusual for a mother of young kids to work. It's simple math (FYI I do have my own car now) and am very thankful for it. Anything in life you REALLY, REALLY want to do you can usually find a way to do.