Thursday, January 11, 2007

Sharing stories

Reader Amy and her husband moved their family from a professional life in the suburbs to a rural farm in Georgia. They wanted quality of life, but Amy still needed to develop an income from home. There, she started ScribbidyScrubs.com, a site selling discount nursing scrubs. She spoke with me recently about some of their challenges:

Q: What was the biggest sacrifice you made in your transition?

A: The biggest sacrifice I made was in my standing with my peers in the nursing community. As a working professional, there seems to be a certain status given to those who put in long hours at the office and away from family. While working at the hospital I remember hearing full-time nurses make snide comments about part-time nurses and "on-call" nurses not being dedicated to their jobs. I no longer get invited to certain nursing functions as I am now deemed one of those undedicated nurses.The sacrifice has been well worth it. Instead of nursing functions, I take my kids to the library and go to my kids' soccer games and playgroups. In hindsight, I think a lot of the criticism doled out by full-time professional nurses can be summed up in one word: jealousy.

Q: What is the greatest money-saver you've found in this simpler lifestyle? Was this an unexpected blessing, or did the rural budget work out as you had hoped from the beginning?

A: If I had to pick I would say it is that our mortgage is considerably lower (and we live on much more property and have a much larger house). Besides the mortgage, we do not use as much gas going too and from work. We knew that we would be saving money in both of these areas.As for an unexpected blessing, we don't spend nearly the money on eating out that we used to. Crock pot meals have replaced fast food restaurants and our chickens lay eggs through the winter which has encouraged me to bake more.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Please don't contribute to the mommy wars by posting diatribes by stay-at-home moms against working moms. Everyone's doing the best they can, I'm sure.