Some things don't change

We were away in Maine last week for our vacation. While up there I ran out of books to read (with no Internet I did a TON of reading). Jon, trying to be helpful, rummaged around the camp his parents are fixing up and found some old magazines. It actually hurts to call them old because they are from 1996 and 1997. And to call these magazines old means that I am getting old. But never mind that...

One was a Good Housekeeping and one was Parents magazine. These are magazines I read now so it was interesting to see what they wrote about 15 years ago. And it surprised me to see so many of the same issues. The article that interested me the most was the article about cutting back and being more frugal during that time. The ideas were the same and one of the women they featured is someone I read even today, Jonni McCoy of Miserly Moms. When I was first staying at home and looking for ways to cut back I ran many Internet searches on Google. Jonni's site was one of the first I found and one I read countless times. To read about her from 15 years ago was fun, especially since it talked about her newsletter. Remember those? I had to keep reminding myself this article was 15 years old, blogs were not a way of life then.

The article featured four moms, including Jonni, who were cutting back. They had many suggestions that still ring true. Use coupons (or don't, the women had different views on this), use tag sales to find clothes and other needed items, splurge on things that you will use for a long time as they hold their value, learn how to grocery shop using sales and many other ideas you see written about in today's magazines.

I was interesting, and it made me happy to read this article. When you listen to the news today they talk about cutting back as if it is this brand new phenomenon. But this 15 year old article shows that no, this is not a brand new idea. Many people have been doing this for years. And the ideas are still the same. Technology may have changed, items we want have changed, our ways of accessing information have changed, but in the end the idea of wanting to live within our means is not a new idea. And it is one that will, hopefully, continue to stick around.

Now, I am going back to feeling old...