Homeschool News & Views

Issue 75, June 29, 2008

From Homeschool Helpers

In association with Pass It On Ministries

By Dan L. White

Listen to this article.

How does four dollar a gallon gas change homeschooling?

We have mentioned previously about a homeschool mother who was giving up on homeschooling and going back to work, for economic reasons. When we held the spring formal English Country Dance this spring, overall attendance was up, as it has been every year. The number of young adults who traveled from distant places was down, though. And we were talking with a family whose homeschool children were in a local homeschool basketball program last year. In that program they played over thirty games. I would guess they had to travel about 150 miles round trip for about 10 of those games. Sometimes they would play several games on a trip. So they had to pay for 1500 miles traveling to distant games, plus all the travel for local games and practices. This coming year, they are not going to be able to do that. Some are discussing the possibility of having a local basketball league.

This economic storm that we are in has been interesting in its development. There was much talk of a real estate bubble, far in advance of the actual foreclosure crisis. We have a homeschool friend who builds houses and his business was going great. Several years ago I was advising him to be careful, because from what I had been reading the real estate market was frothy. After I said that, a couple of years went by and the housing business was still great.

Finally gas prices exploded and the real estate market topped out. People began defaulting on their mortgages, home prices started sinking, and most of the big boys were caught by surprise. Huge financial institutions like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and even Citicorp, said to be the world’s largest financial services company, were either busted or greatly damaged by the mortgage mess. Hundreds of financial service companies have gone under recently. Many other banks are thought to be very suspect in their finances, because they carry mortgages on their books at a price that is not the actual market. They have not accepted the new reality.

Financial analysis firms say that most of the people who bought houses in 2006 now owe more on their homes than they will sell for. They have even come up with a name for this situation: being upside down on your house. Some of these buyers are just walking away from their homes, letting the bank have them back. Of course, those people then have to find somewhere else to live.

The general public has not yet accepted the reality of what has happened. Most people who are upside down on their mortgages still have an unrealistic idea of what their house is worth, based on what they paid for it. There is a glut of houses on the market which are priced according to what the homeowner paid rather than what the present market will pay. When these homeowners absolutely have to sell, then the reality will hit them.

Reality will hit other homeowners when their esoteric mortgages escalate their monthly payments, as they adjust to a new rate in the next couple of years. More foreclosures are expected.

Even most of the people who are buying houses now have not accepted the new reality. They think they are getting a great deal on a house because it is priced less than it was last year. But if it is also priced more than it will be next year, it is not a great deal. A person who tries to catch a falling knife gets cut. If you buy a bargain house for $100,000, pay $8,000 in payments for a year, and then that house is worth $90,000, is that a great deal?

This whole mortgage crisis has been like a big, black storm rolling in. You could see it from far off, watch if get closer and closer, and finally hear the booming thunder. Housing prices have sunk, yet gasoline prices have skyrocketed. SUV’s used to be a cool vehicle to drive. Now SUV stands for Stupid Uneconomical Vehicle.

In this economic storm, we might say that the rising gas prices were the rain. Falling house prices were the hail. The tornado is yet to hit.

Missouri is one of the leading states in the country for getting hit by tornadoes. Half of the tornado deaths in the country this year have been in our area. Saturday morning at three a.m. we were awakened by a storm and roused ourselves to check on the latest tornado warnings. This year it seems that every storm which comes through triggers a tornado warning somewhere, as that one did. The tornado was not close by, but our night’s sleep was ruined.

In this economic storm, the tornado that is to hit is people losing their jobs. That is now beginning to happen.

We have negative home equity, unbelievably high gasoline prices which are still going higher, and now people are losing their jobs. All of this hits homeschooler families harder than anybody.

Homeschoolers are usually one income families. In a two income family, when one gets laid off, the other still brings in a paycheck. When homeschool families lose their one source of income, it’s a bigger problem.

Homeschoolers have to pay for all their social activities, and homeschool families often put on quite a few miles doing that. Now that gas costs have doubled, that hurts them more than almost anyone.

I could tell you seven ways to cut back on your expenses, but chances are you homeschool families have already come up with eight, and you’re working on nine and ten. But I will urge you to take this economic storm very seriously. Americans have become addicted to spending. It’s strange that in our society it’s considered cool to spend instead of not spending. Now is that dumb or what? You work hard for your money. Why should it be cool to just throw it away? That’s not smart.

As a people, we don’t enjoy saving money. We enjoy spending money. It is an addictive mentality. We can want the latest video game or HDTV, and we convince ourselves that those things are practically necessities, and we really need to get them.

We need to take this economic storm very seriously. It looks as if it will get a lot worse before it gets better.

What effect will four dollar a gallon gas have on homeschoolers?

The biggest effect will be to give the liberals almost total power over America. Most people who vote don’t really think very deeply. Their thinking only goes down as far as their wallets.

If the liberals get into power because of four dollar gas, that will be ironic because it is the liberals who have caused four dollar gas. They have refused to let America have its own energy sources, and have made us hostage to the Arabs. Liberals want high energy prices. When they get in power, they will add still more taxes on energy use, and they may forbid me to use my 28 year old wood stove.

With costs of everything increasing and families losing their jobs, this is a bit of a crisis time for homeschoolers.

We live only about a dozen miles from Laura Ingalls’ home where she wrote the Little House® books. We did a homeschool project years ago where we talked with some of Laura’s friends about her. That is an ebook called Laura Ingalls’ Friends Remember Her. Now we have followed that up with an ebook titled Devotionals with Laura©. We took Laura’s favorite Bible selections and discussed what they meant in her life and what they might mean to us. For example, Laura said that she read Psalm 46 in a crisis. Here are a few lines of it.

Psa 46:1-3, KJ

(1) God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

(2) Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;

(3) Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.

Here is an excerpt from the book, Devotionals with Laura©.

“Laura and Manly had a crisis that touched the lives of many people, including yours. That crisis made a little change in the whole big world.

When Laura and Manly came to Mansfield, they had a hundred dollars. They paid that down on their $300 farm. At first they sold wood to earn money to live on. Rose recalled that the very first cord that Manly sold only brought fifty cents. The usual price was a dollar a cord, a stack four feet tall by four feet deep by eight feet long.

After several years they developed their farm enough so they were able to sell apples, poultry and eggs, and cream. The cabin on Rocky Ridge was a rough log cabin. After a few years living in the rough cabin the Wilders moved into Mansfield and rented a small house. Manly still worked on the farm and at other jobs. Laura cooked meals for railroad workers.

During this time Laura and Manly were at least staying even economically, but were not getting much ahead. They could not get a big house built on their farm, and they were not living at their beloved Rocky Ridge.

Manly’s parents had moved from New York state, the site of the book Farmer Boy, to Minnesota. They were prosperous farmers there. Laura and Manly had lived with them for a year in Minnesota while Manly recuperated after having diphtheria. Manly’s parents eventually visited him and Laura, and as a gift bought them the house they were renting in Mansfield. Laura and Manly sold that house in town and were then able to get their farmhouse built on Rocky Ridge in 1912.

It was 18 years after they moved to the Ozarks before they were able to get their house built on their farm. Rose was long gone, married and far away in California. Manly was 55 years old when the house was finished and he was finally back on his farm full time.

In 1911 Laura was able to begin bringing in a little extra income by writing a regular column about farm life for the Missouri Ruralist. Laura also worked for the Farm Loan Association, again to bring in extra income.

They were successful enough financially to expand their original 40 acres to 200, a fair sized farm for the hilly Ozarks. However, when Laura visited Rose in San Francisco in 1915, Rose was trying to convince her parents to move to California, where their farm labors might be easier. Laura did look California over with that in mind, but concluded that she wouldn’t trade all of California for one Ozark hill.

In the 1920’s Rose, divorced and single, lived with them at Rocky Ridge and was very successful with her writing. The stock market was skyrocketing and Rose invested her good earnings in the market. Toward the end of the 1920’s, Laura no longer worked for the Farm Loan Association and no longer wrote columns for the Missouri Ruralist. Manly was in his 70’s and most of the farm work was taken care of by a hired man. Laura and Manly were comfortable, had some savings to live on, and were slowing down as they entered the last stage of their lives.

And Rose talked them into investing their money with her broker in the stock market.

In 1929, that money was gone.

That was a crisis.

Young people can take on a crisis. Old people want to take it easy.

In his twenties, thirties, forties and fifties, Manly had fought with farms. He had had a bad leg and a good spirit. But in his seventies, he had a bad leg and an old body. His spirit might still have been willing to wage the war against the rocks and pests and weather, but his flesh was seventy-ish.

When they were ready to settle back, they had to step it up again, just to stay alive.

One of Laura’s friends recalls Laura mentioning something referring to that period.

Editor: Did Laura talk about their life on the farm much?

Nava: She did mention that one time they had a young colt they liked very much. Both Laura and Almanzo liked horses and they had some good stock. But one time -- I think it was in the early thirties -- they had to sell that colt just to pay the taxes on their property. Laura was really sad about having to part with that colt.

From the book Laura Ingall’s Friends Remember Her, by Dan L. White

Losing their savings was a crisis that could be with them for the rest of their lives. Surely during that time, when the whole country was suffering, Laura read, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

Then Laura tried writing again. Not columns, but books. They could use the money.

About 1930, as the depression was really pressing in, Laura asked Rose to help with a book Laura had written. The book was Pioneer Girl, the story of Laura’s life. The publishers refused the book.

Laura rewrote the story, Rose helped edit it, and in 1932 Little House in the Big Woods was published. Laura was 65 years old and had her first successful novel.

The first royalty check was for $500. Wages were about $15 per week, but a quarter of the country was jobless, with no wages. That one check, the smallest she ever received, was the better part of a year’s income, if a person had a year’s income.

The crisis was past.

That crisis made a little change in the whole big world. The Little House books are read all across America and in many other countries and languages. Laura might have written them even without the financial crisis, but there is no doubt it gave her extra motivation. And surely Psalm 46 gave her extra inspiration.”

If your family has a crisis during this economic storm, such life events are learning times for us. And Psalm 46 is a good place to start learning.