Have you ever driven through a town filled with Amish families? If you answered yes than you can remember what it was like driving past the different homes, farms, and businesses. The homes are big and beautiful, but yet simple and unique. Some of the homes are even more admirable than yours, making you curious to how they can afford such a lovely home. As you continue to drive you notice hand-painted signs posted along the main road, advertising different businesses or trades. Some of the trades are just as simple as selling the different crops the family has grown, where other trades are more complex like selling hand-made quilts. When you walk into a market or a business you notice that each person pays with the cash out of their pocket. Throughout this visit you observe their simple lives and wonder how they can be so content with life and not worry about their financial situation. How can these Amish people live in our world today and still have luxurious homes, great lives, and only buy things using cash?
Amish people make a living, pay taxes, and have families just like the rest of the world. The difference between them and us is how they go about living their lives. Three major differences between our two worlds include electricity, family, and money. The Amish live without electricity and generally have larger families that includes anywhere from six to ten children. How many families do you see when you go out that have more than four children? The most significant difference between our world and their world is that they have the ability to save and manage their money better than us, even with larger families.
The Amish start early when it comes to managing their budgets well. Children go to school and learn many ...
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...beautiful homes and large families, because of the way they budget their money and live reasonable lives. Teaching their children how to save money and live self-conscious lives are a few of their secrets to success in our expensive world today. The next time you take a drive through Lancaster, Pennsylvania absorb the Amish style of living, and learn a thing or two to take home and apply to your own lifestyle.
Works Cited
Grossman, Amanda L. "Amish Finances." Web log post. Chron. Houston Chronicle, 29 May 2009. Web. 03 Mar. 2011. .
The American and the Amish have a lot of differences when it comes to education. The Americans have a lot of different school options around each school district, and the Amish are able to decide to go to a private or public school, but most
Wise, Stephan. "How the Amish Work." How Stuff Works.com. Amish America, 19 Sept. 2002. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.
Several questions I was left with after watching Devil’s Playground: Amish Teenagers in the Modern World, was that of wondering who was paying for these teenagers cars a...
You’re on vacation in rural Ohio en route to your bed and breakfast when your GPS has lost signal and you take a wrong turn down a dirt road. You start to notice the modern looking farm buildings but there are no power poles with electricity running to these quaint farms. Next thing you know you are being passed by a black buggy driven by a muscular horse and you think to yourself that the gentleman driving with his plain black hat, white shirt, black pants, and a full beard must be from back in time. It all of a sudden arises to you from reading your favorite Amish books by Beverly Lewis that you must be in Old Order Amish country where the society lives in the modern world but not up to modern standards. What has always interested me on the Amish, is the youth’s Rumspringa, the different Amish sects there are, and how there every day life is.
Health wise they get immunizations and try to take care of their health. Having good health was important to them.
Billings, Dwight B. "The Road to Poverty: The Making of Wealth and Hardship in Appalachia." Booklist 36 (1999): 38.
...ciety could buy and own a firearm. The wealth increased in Thull when herding diminished. The change to their economic system included cultivating potatoes as a cash crop, coupled with an increased number of fields significantly increased hard cash in the community. The supply of money expanded even further following large-scale timber exploitation.
...n, A. M. ( 1995, Spring) The Amish Struggle with Modernity. Virginia Quarterly Review. Vol. 71, Issue 2
Kraybill (2014) note that one of the techniques the Amish use to preserve their cultural separation is that they steadfastly elude urban life and area, living only in rural settlements that provided seclusion and exclude them from any temptations. The distance created has empowered them to evade extreme obsession with buying material goods, household furnishings, vacation, clothing and the crazes of widely held values and beliefs. Moreover, they have successfully cloistered themselves from social movements, such as feminism, pluralism, and multiculturalism that would dramatically transform their lives in many ways (Kraybill 2014).
The Millionaire Next Door written by William Danko and Thomas J. Stanley illustrates the misconception of high luxury spenders in wealthy neighborhoods are considered wealthy. This clarifies that American’s who drive expensive cars, and live in lavish homes are not millionaires and financially independent. The authors show the typical millionaire are one that is frugal, and disciplined. Their cars are used, and their suits were purchased at a discount. As we read the book from cover to cover are misconceptions start to fade.
As demonstrated by the characters in Ragged Company, finding a home is not as easy as signing a lease. Sometimes people search their whole lives before finding a place that they can truly be themselves and be celebrated for it. As Dick said, “When you make it home, everything that made life difficult out there disappears. You become whole. You don’t stutter anymore, you think clearly, your body’s not old and tired. You’re healed,” (Wagamese, 2009, p.376). Material wealth only marginally improved the health of the characters in the book, while coping with mental trauma and trusting their friendship was what actually improved their lives. Even after they obtained housing, the most important home the rounders had was the one they found in each
A penny saved may be a penny earned, just as a penny spent may begin to better the world. Andrew Carnegie, a man known for his wealth, certainly knew the value of a dollar. His successful business ventures in the railroad industry, steel business, and in communications earned him his multimillion-dollar fortune. Much the opposite of greedy, Carnegie made sure he had what he needed to live a comfortable life, and put what remained of his fortune toward assistance for the general public and the betterment of their communities. He stressed the idea that generosity is superior to arrogance. Carnegie believes that for the wealthy to be generous to their community, rather than live an ostentatious lifestyle proves that they are truly rich in wealth and in heart. He also emphasized that money is most powerful in the hands of the earner, and not anyone else. In his retirement, Carnegie not only spent a great deal of time enriching his life by giving back; but also often wrote about business, money, and his stance on the importance of world peace. His essay “Wealth” presents what he believes are three common ways in which the wealthy typically distribute their money throughout their life and after death. Throughout his essay “Wealth”, Andrew Carnegie appeals to logos as he defines “rich” as having a great deal of wealth not only in materialistic terms, but also in leading an active philanthropic lifestyle. He solidifies this definition in his appeals to ethos and pathos with an emphasis on the rewards of philanthropy to the mind and body.
But do the se things make them happy? Of course not. They are coming upon money from someone else's misfortune, someone they love. The money may have made life easier for a brief moment in time, but the novelty soon wears off and reality soon returns.
The characteristics of the affluent researched in the book share seven common traits that have helped them achieve financial success: