Don't let other people pressure you into spending $

I should know by now that I will almost always end up the fool if I spend money!
Case in Point: Our newborn son was baptized this last weekend. A week ago, I got a call from a mom (I won't say whose, but it wasn't mine) very concerned about what kind of luncheon we were preparing for our guests to enjoy after the baptism.
My plan at that time? NONE
Not only did I not plan a luncheon, I hadn't even planned to have any guests. But, I had just given birth two weeks earlier, apparently, I wasn't thinking too clearly.
Feeling guilty (mostly because I knew that if I didn't have a plan, then this person was going to go to the store and buy a bunch of food to compensate for my failure), I decided that I would put together some simple snacks in case anyone wanted to stop by the house after church. This would be 10:30ish - I figured I could get away with snacks as opposed to a whole meal.
Now, I manage to spend no money by avoiding the store altogether, not because of any fancy shopping techniques. By the time I got home, I had spent an entire day, been to three different stores, spent $200 and had a van full of food; every possible item that my potential 'guests' might want to eat. Then, I recruited my daughters and we spent an entire day making dips, cutting veggies, making cookies and so on. Every member of our church could come by and there would be enough food to go around.
I didn't need to do all of this - but, I had this obsessive desire to make sure that my one particular guest wouldn't feel the need to buy any food for us; the only thing that bothers me more than spending money is someone else spending money on me because they think we are somehow deprived. Well, I did accomplish that, but here's how God made me feel like a fool...
Saturday evening, Caitlin became ill, Sunday morning she was throwing up in the bathroom at church, Don was so sick he barely made it through the service, and I wasn't feeling so great either. We suggested to all of our family that they not come by the house lest they get ill as well, and while we had a ton of food to share, we didn't think that food prepared by our hands (just hours before we were vomiting) would be very healthy for others to eat.
But, it gets even better. My refrigerator is often nearly empty. I have a full pantry and freezer and make meals from raw foods, so mostly leftovers go in the frig, and then we eat those up leaving a mostly empty refrigerator. But, now it was full of all the prepared foods we had made. Sunday, half of our family was sick and we had no guests, so very little was eaten. Monday, we began to get our appetites back, but then attended a fellowship dinner where we visited for quite awhile and were one of the last to leave. They packed up many leftovers for our family to take home. We felt very blessed.
As we arrived home Monday night, I said to my husband, "I feel like an a-s for spending $200 on junk food, and now I have just received a weeks worth of meals for free and there's no room in my refrigerator." I can think of several bill collectors who would have liked it if I'd sent the $200 to them instead!
So, the moral of my story is that if God has always provided for you, know that He will continue to, and don't be the fool that makes purchases based on someone else's idea of 'need'.
If someone comes to visit, and wants to buy you groceries; try not to be offended. Or if you cancel the cable and sell the tv, then someone who loves you thinks that you are deprived and buys you a tv/vcr for Christmas... just be thankful!

Corinne Johnson is a Christian homeschooling mother of six, helpmeet to her husband Don, and author of a series of educational unit studies based on favorite family travel destinations. She writes about their life without regular paychecks to encourage others to follow God's lead wherever it may take them. Learn more about them at www.vacationeducationbooks.net