You may have noticed that it’s LoDo Feb here at our little Abrahamic outpost, and that means we are taking a month to spend as little as we possibly can. Some of us give all those savings away, and some of us use the saved dough to increase our financial agility for the rest of the year (say, by paying down some unpleasant debt, or pumping up the ever-present slush fund goodness), but the truth is that LoDo Feb is not primarily about the benefits we gain through the money we saved. If that were the crux of it, we could just call it “work harder Feb” and encourage you to all take a few extra shifts at the lumber mill. I assume most of you work at lumber mills, for some reason. You’re just all so manly.
I digress.
Nay, the point of Lo Do Feb is that it TRAINS US, dangit. This month of austerity isn’t just a way to make life more interesting (although, hey…), it’s a discipling tool. It is also a very practical exercise that reminds us just how capable we are of dealing with whatever comes down the financial pike. It also teaches us a central principle of life in Christ: namely, that small things matter. A lot.
I, like some of you, have been known to indulge in the Jocko Podcast. (Some find him annoying, saying he represents a cartoon version of masculinity. To that I say… okay I’ll give you that.) But he does put some of the LoDo Feb principals across quite well when discussing fasting:
News flash: you don’t have to eat. Fasting is a gift. All those times you’re at a party, or at an airport, or on a train, and they don’t have any good healthy food for you to eat, the answer is simple, don’t eat… Fasting will recalibrate what hunger is to you. You will realize that you aren’t hungry most of the time, you’re just bored.
I probably don’t have to convince you that most of us are addicted to food (especially sugar), but for some reason many of us are slower to wake up and see how addicted we have become to spending. But materialism–the endless acquisition of more and more possessions, and the love of that process–is surely one of our greatest national strongholds. Tim Kasser, PhD, of Knox College, says that “[American] capitalism encourages materialistic values, and the research shows that people high on materialism … are more likely to engage in unethical business behaviors and manipulate people for their own purposes.” Put another way, our deception that life is about stuff is sin. And sin produces death. We need saving!
To that end, LoDo Feb is a recalibration moment for you wallet that works in much the same that fasting will help you break off the whiny demands of your tummy. LoDo Feb, like fasting, is a gift, for anyone who will submit to it and let God train us by it.
BUT HOW? You ask. As with everything, we here at AW look first to your God-directed vision and goals, then look for where to apply those goals. In this case (financial capital), we look to your budget. If you’re still reading, I’m hoping that I’ve got you on board with the vision of what we’re after this month (namely: laying an ax to the root of American materialism that preys on us all), so let’s move on to some quick tips for cinching down your financial belt for the month of February. Interestingly, the greatest impact I see in my life during LoDoFeb are not big things (if you’re finding that to be the case with you, we might need to revamp your budget wholesale). No, for my family, LoDoFeb produces small changes that add up over time. And that’s nothing to be sneezed at! Those small habits and little purchases add up significantly over time. Want to see some of our opportunities for saving? Here are 4:
1. The biggest budget categories where I find savings are groceries and entertainment. There are also a few categories where I don’t find huge savings, but I choose to voluntarily expend great effort for small savings because of the training benefits. These include gasoline, home maintenance and utilities.
You’ve read our classic guest post on grocery shopping, so I won’t bore you with the basics. One thing I did this month was look back at my grocery shopping receipts (save these and review them once in a while). By honing in on the outliers, I was able to figure out where I’m most likely to bust the budget, and I can plan to avoid those things for the duration of my LoDo Feb.
In our family, the budget busters were meats and cheeses. We love ourselves a good ribeye. Or a homemade pizza covered in locally made salami. Or a killer blue cheese with a 20 year old tawny port. Those items are not affordable to me during LoDo Feb. So we’ll have burgers instead of steak and if we need an adult beverage we’ll raid the jug of cheap rum that uncle Dave left here last time he visited. ¡Cuba libre!
2. We will also save money this month by skipping on some convenience. Instead of buying the handy pre-chopped broccoli and cauliflower spears, I’ll be buying the whole plant and cutting it up myself (those stalks are full of nutrition you know). We won’t live without vegetables, because the resultant constipations would be more financially ruinous than the cost of the vegetables. But we will save 50% by doing a little more work and only purchasing exactly what we need.
3. As far as entertainment goes, I’ll still be dating my wife this month, but we’ll be doing swaps with friends instead of hiring babysitters for the kids. When we want to watch a movie, we’ll pick from Netflix instead of renting from Apple. And when the urge to pull through my favorite on-the-go Mexican food joint strikes, I’ll shed one tear and keep driving. (I put Mexican fast food into my entertainment budget because I often question whether it counts as food– and we have no line item for “taste bud merriment”).
The reason why these little changes are hard to implement is because they are LITTLE. It’s the very same reason well-intentioned families fail at budgeting all of the time – to do it right you need to steward every single dollar with great care. Most budgets die a death of a thousand cuts. Remember Luke 16:10 and stop pretending that small numbers don’t matter: One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much.
Who has despised the day of small things?
Zechariah 4:10
So is LoDoFeb also good training for budgeting in general? Yes, by golly! It is! By taking February to actually care that your cauliflower was 75 cents cheaper, you might train that skill of thoughtful care into your brain enough that it sticks there when you go back to your regular budget. When it comes to LoDoFeb, you will only be able to realize a big win at the end of the month if you can force yourself to care about finding many, daily small savings.
4. I also put energy into reducing my utility bill and driving my car less in February. Why? Because it sucks to ride your bike around Utah in February, and that suck is, much like fasting, good for my soul. Even though I’ll be lucky to save twenty bucks with my February pedaling, each cold morning on the bike will serve as a reminder that I’m capable of doing with less. Same deal with a thermostat turned down three degrees.
At the end of a month in which I chose some hardship in order to save a tiny bit of money, I’m more prepared for a time in which I might not have the choice should it ever arise. Ask your (great?… sheesh you guys are getting young) grandpa about the depression era. Many people went from relative affluence to very real hardship almost overnight. Now, as a multi-generational Abrahamic household manager, you’re not going to find yourself subject to the winds of the market with the same frequency as your neighbors, but most Americans would react to a 10% pay cut (or decrease in revenues for your small business) with abject terror. Would you? No way: you’ve learned that we can ALWAYS make do with less.
Make Us More Resilient LORD!
We voluntarily welcome some adversity into our lives during February to remind ourselves (both our thinking minds and our bodies, which don’t like the chilly bike ride to work) that we’re capable of living without all sorts of comforts and conveniences. It’s freeing to occasionally re-prove this fact, and then we can certainly return to our regular patterns of wisely and enjoyably spending money when it buys us more important things (like time with family, relationship-building experiences, etc.).
So, hombres, take my encouragements with you into this month as you put scrutiny towards the small items that mount up to comprise your entire budget. Then mix a dose of discomfort into your LoDo Feb for good measure. We think you’ll end up recalibrated for the better!
Catch us the small foxes,
For the small foxes destroy the vines…
Song of Solomon 2:15
