Key Mindset for Economic Survival
To survive the current economic downturn, and to improve your family’s financial prospects for the future, it is essential for you
to get a new mindset. Rather than viewing your home primarily as a place of CONSUMPTION, view your home as a place of
PRODUCTIVITY. We can and should be busy at home minding our own businesses, not just consuming all the stuff our
culture pours out.
In other words, home is a place to ‘consume’ media in the form of radio and TV programs. But it could just as easily be a
place where you ‘produce’ media in the form of creating your own media (you tube videos, for one thing!) for others to
consume.
- Home is a place to consume food, but you could just as easily produce food for sale. (I have a friend who markets her brother’s
salsa recipe) - Home is a place we ‘consume’ books and magazine articles, but many people produce books and articles from home
- Home is a place we ‘consume’ the internet in vast quantities of time, but thousands are producing content designed to
market their information or products via the internet. - Home is a place where we store our ‘consumer goods’ like clothes and jewelry, but we could just as easily produce clothes
and jewelry from home. My 18-year old daughter, Leah, produces jewelry at home to sell via the internet and at my
conferences. - Home is a place where we store junk, but we could just as easily sell our junk at yard sales and flea markets.
It’s a very simple mindset shift: From viewing our home strictly as a place to consume what others have produced, to viewing
home as a place where we can produce products and/or information to market to others for their consumption.
I firmly believe God intended the home to be the center of our lives. Not just the place we come to recover from our lives. The
Proverbs 31 woman was busy at home. She was productive. Maintaining her home wasn’t an end in itself. A smooth-
functioning home was a means to an end. It created an environment that fostered creativity and launched a broad range of
income-generating activities. Clearly, she manufactured and sold goods she made at home. It says, “She makes linen
garments and sells them, and supplies the merchants with sashes.” And she wasn’t just playing at business; she was in it
to make money. The Proverbs 31 woman made sure her trading was profitable.
Having operated a home-based business for twenty years, I’m here to tell you any woman can make extra money from home
if she is willing to work. God’s ideal wife, the Proverbs 31 woman, used her home to generate income. It is unwise to rely
solely on one income source in today’s unstable economy. My husband, a very talented architect, lost his job in March 2007
and was without a steady paycheck for about a year. It was completely unexpected. I thank God that I have multiple streams
of income. And while I’m busy thanking God, my husband is thanking me for being willing to help shoulder the financial load.
In this economy, I firmly believe everyone in America should have at least a small home business on the side.
Excellent advice. I just bought a HD camcorder and am going to start doing video book reviews on a new informational site. Thanks for the confirmation about creating instead of consuming. Wonderful!
Just wondering how you balance home and homeschooling? Do you homeschool? I have three little ones, two of which I homeschool, try to run the house, I’m a pastor’s wife, and I do have a home-based business. But, it can easily get to bee too much, and too overwhelming. I wonder, with your book-writing and speaking, how do you do it all without having a breakdown! 
I’ve almost been there before, even though I felt God was providing the work for me, but I think I just took too much on. It’s hard to find that balance…
…This year has been better already, because we set some tighter boundaries for me working, and that has helped, but it still can be alot somedays. I know that I have to rely on God for His strength, but there are times, when I feel like…wasn’t toiling the man’s curse and ours childbirthing? Sometimes the pressure of having to help provide can weigh me down on top of everything else. I know God is our provider, and He is faithful. I know He will give me strength equal to my tasks, and maybe I tried to go it “alone.” I just wonder about doing it and homeschooling, too??
..Sorry for 3 posts! By the way, I do photography, which means alot of time in front of the computer! But, I do believe it is a gift God gave me.
Loved your comment: “wasn’t toiling the man’s curse?” Yes, indeed. However, the reality is that all over the world, women toil alongside their husbands. All over the world, women help work the fields and women labor to assist their family economically. Women in the West have been very blessed to enjoy a brief period in human history where women had the privilege of focusing their energy almost exclusively on nurturing. That has not been the norm throughout history and it is not the norm throughout the world today.
Who said I’m not having a breakdown? That’s a rumor! Of COURSE, I’m having a breakdown! (Kidding, friends)
It is hard to juggle it all and I wouldn’t dream of claiming to have it all figured out. It’s all about listening to God and walking in humble obedience. There’s a constant shifting, i think. My daughters are older now, 19 and almost 13. My oldest is in college (lives at home and is a HUGE blessing and great help). Lots of pressure for her to go to a “good school” somewhere far away because she is absolutely brilliant. But guess what? She is content at home, attending the local community college. She’s not on the fast track to success, but she doesn’t care. She wants to be a missionary and hasn’t bought into the whole world system AT ALL.
The younger is very self-motivated and basically schools herself with material we selected together. Our priority is for our children to: Love God, love our family and serve the world. So we don’t make ourselves crazy about filling in worksheets and “covering” certain material. So homeschooling is not stressful because I refuse to let it be stressful.
Certain people in my life were so certain my loosy-goosy style meant my children were ‘ruined’ academically. so last year I put my youngest daughter in public school. She immediatley scored into Advanced Placement in every subject and secured straight As the entire year. She was very happy and quite popular….she also said, “Mommy, I prayed about and I want to come back home now.” She missed being at home.
As far as your business, yes, boundaries are important. LISTEN TO YOUR HUSBAND. Oh my my my. LISTEN TO YOUR HUSBAND. It’s just flat out uncanny how right most husbands are when it comes to boundaries for their wives. It is God-given. Unless there’s something ridiculously dysfunctional about the husband….and even then, God can still work through him. Go figure. Yeah, God’s that big!
Hope that helps! (’cause it was really from my heart, as you can probably tell)