Money Secrets of the Amish

Everybody’s safe.”

That’s what the sign says in front of my friend Alison’s charred husk of a house.

Just yesterday, Doyle and I were awakened by the phone ringing. The caller, a friend, told us some extremely disturbing news: her mother had driven by Alison and Paul’s house earlier that morning and saw that it had burned down. “There’s just nothing there,” she said, but couldn’t tell me anything else.

For fifteen minutes, I didn’t know if my beloved friend and her family were alive or dead.

My overriding thought was that surely not everyone could have escaped a blaze like that.

After what seemed like infinity, I reached Alison’s sister. “Everyone got out, even Jack [their dog],” she said. “No one has even a scratch.” Relief swamped me, yet the agony of those minutes of not knowing their fate will stay a long time.

At 5 a.m., Alison was up reading (typical), and she smelled smoke. Just a couple of weeks before, they had moved their bedroom to the space over the garage, where the fire had mysteriously started. Smoke alarms began to blare, and she and Paul jumped out of bed to evacuate their three children. Their son, Christopher, is deaf; he had to be slapped on the leg by his frantic mother before he woke up.

Little Eden, seven, grabbed a box with a baby bird in it. Just before bedtime, Eden had found the struggling wee thing in their yard and vowed to nurse it back to health.

Together, Paul, Alison, Christopher, Lydia, and Eden, plus Jack the dog and Max the baby bird, huddled in shock and awe as they watched their home swallowed up in flames. Alison looked at Paul over their children’s heads. “We have everything we need right here.”

VALUABLE

Andy Miller can also remember a moment in time when everything faded to black except for the well-being of his loved ones.

A few years ago, his two young sons took the family buggy out for a drive on a Saturday morning. They wanted to go fishing at an Englisher friend’s lakefront property. A car, the driver blinded by the morning sunlight, came up over a hill and didn’t see the buggy in his path until it was too late.

Andy’s two sons were thrown like rag dolls from the buggy; nine-year-old Jonas had to be airlifted to Grand Rapids with critical injuries. His seven-year-old brother was bloody and bruised, but okay. Jonas pulled through, and to this day his datt keeps a photo of the crumpled buggy close at hand, to remind him of what’s important.

“For me, the best times of my life have been spent with my family,” Andy said. “Having devotions together, or, in the summertime, playing croquet or shuffleboard or Dutch Blitz are wonderful memories. After the accident, I realized my family and I . . . we have more than we need.”

Ella Yoder was reflective when we talked about what’s valuable in life. “I have learned through losing loved ones that it’s so important to look forward to life’s little pleasures,” she said. “Coffee in the morning, listening to the birds, getting together as families.”

The truth that transcends Plain and Fancy: chasing after money and things is meaningless, because the best things in life are free.

She and three friends get together once a month and play Scrabble. Her most cherished memories are of when she was raising her children. “We would have picnics and play hide-and-seek together,” she said. “Nothing is more valuable than that.”

Alison, Andy, and Ella now know what every eighty-five-year-old knows, the truth that transcends Plain and Fancy: chasing after money and things is meaningless, because the best things in life are free.

Amish Trivial Pursuit Night

Ella, Naomi, Ephraim, Daniel, and Banker Bill were barely aware I was there, such was the competitive fever permeating Amish Trivial Pursuit night.

Wild horses could not have dragged me from the occasion. My Amish posse had put on a night of fun, frivolity, and trivia just for me and my family. It was, as always, ladies versus men, and according to Banker Bill, the ladies had never won once. As an entertainment writer, I felt sure I could come alongside the ladies and help them to their first victory. The bad news was, the Amish throw out the arts and entertainment pie and replace it with Bible trivia. The good news: I went to Bible college for four years.

Abigail, the hostess, bustled around her kitchen, near where we all sat at a long table with benches. She refilled juice pitchers; replenished trays of treats, such as “bachelor button” candies, cheese curls, and popcorn dribbled with melted chocolate and caramel; and pushed those treats upon the newcomers.

Despite my Bible college education, I might as well have been a Rastafarian for all the good I did my team of ladies. I had no clue about the first few questions, until suddenly there was one I could answer, in the sports category.

Even the priciest event planner in Hollywood couldn’t have orchestrated the camaraderie, coziness, and fun of this simple Amish game night.

“What do Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller have in common?” Daniel read from the question card.

“They were both married to Marilyn Monroe!” I blurted out.

There was a moment of silence. No one argued with me. Daniel flipped the card over and nodded, shrugging. “She’s right.”

The ladies looked at me approvingly. Finally, their Great White and Fancy Hope had come through. All my years of reading People magazine had stood me in good stead for that moment.

The next question was read, and I looked around the room, seeing happy faces—it was plain to see that everyone was having a ball. About fifteen Amish folk mingled at the long table with the five visiting Englisher friends. Partygoers argued good-naturedly over the questions, and the ladies’ ringleader, a boisterous Amish gal named Rebecca, talked her team in and out of various answers, igniting raucous laughter at times. Even the priciest event planner in Hollywood couldn’t have orchestrated the camaraderie, coziness, and fun of this simple Amish game night. I was a stranger to most of the guests, yet I felt completely comfortable, welcomed, at-home, and at peace.

My mind rewound to various parties, book club meetings, and dinner parties I’ve hosted over the years, events where I’ve spent way too much to finance swanky party gifts and up-market appetizers, wine, and flowers, not just to treat my guests but also—I must admit—to impress them.

Meanwhile, those overpriced affairs couldn’t hold a candle to a no-fuss Amish party with chocolate-covered popcorn and a game—bought at a secondhand store—as its cornerstone.

Rightsizing

I never realized quite how much I bought into our culture’s way of looking at spending and money management, how mindlessly I bought things and how recklessly I lived on the edge, before two things happened.

1. I began to spend time with the Amish, and unconsciously at the first, started to follow their example of saving, sharing, and living more simply.

2. The recession hit us square when we tried—and failed— to sell the house we had spent ten years investing in.

Such times call for a different mentality, one of reassessing spending habits and values, and of focusing not on what we lost but what we have.

Sociologists call this downturn rebalancing “rightsizing.” Like most people, I was resistant at first to all the changes, but then I realized this was a good-for-me shift, from wanting more than I could get to valuing the things in life that yield true rewards.

Clearly, before this shift, my money habits—and therefore my life—were out of whack. I wanted things I couldn’t afford, and sometimes I bought those things on credit. I was living on a tightrope, believing nothing bad would ever happen, so why experience a moment’s discomfort denying myself so I could build a shelter against a rainy day?

I also deeply held the idea—though I didn’t know it—that to build memories and have fun, you have to empty your wallet in the process.

Sadie was incredulous when I told her how much we spend on popcorn alone at the movies. “Six dollars? For popcorn?” (There’s a 900 percent markup on movie popcorn; it’s one of the most jacked-up items one could possibly buy.) She couldn’t believe it, and she loves popcorn. Every Sunday night, she and her husband and their children play dominoes and share a huge bowl of fluffy popped kernels, drizzled with butter.

“We have fun without spending very much money,” she said. “We play volleyball, or cook hot dogs after a hike in the woods.”

My family and I are great movie buffs, so no doubt we’ll continue to patronize our local Cineplex, and we may still pay the 900 percent markup on popcorn because it’s like buttery, salty, melt-in-your-mouth gold, after all. Post-rightsizing, though, pricey movie nights (seventy-five bucks for movie tickets and snacks for everyone) have become a once-in-awhile treat, not a routine occurrence. Now, we regularly test the “fun doesn’t have to cost you” theory, and we play more board games at home and Frisbee golf in the park.

This is another great gift of the Amish way of wealth: they share what they have with neighbors, Plain and Fancy both, which has a wonderful, full-circle effect.

Twice-a-week Chinese takeout and/or pizza has become every other week, and instead we make turkey tacos in the Crock-Pot with Mexican soda pop, or Asian chicken and broccoli with store-bought fortune cookies. Ironically, the less we spend on family time, the closer we get. The Amish would not be surprised by this. They know investing in relationships is a far greater venture than devoting money for material things. Their pared-down lifestyle, slower in rhythm than ours but rich in togetherness, has produced a type of closeness that can’t be bought.

“The Amish are a ‘people culture,’” said Erik Wesner. “Without television, and all the rest, much time is spent with friends and loved ones, and they’ve also got a lot of opportunities at hand to help one another out.” This is another great gift of the Amish way of wealth: they share what they have with neighbors, Plain and Fancy both, which has a wonderful, fullcircle effect.

Last summer, during our Period of Extreme Thrift, this got me thinking. What can we share? I wondered.

My husband, the Fish Slayer himself, had the answer. Our freezer was full of gorgeous, yummy salmon, caught recently in the waters of Lake Michigan. We gifted our new neighbors with several fillets, and they were thrilled. Doyle likes to say that when you give people salmon fillets, they behave as if you just gave them a bag of twenty-dollar bills. In return, they brought cookies and casseroles. The chef a couple of doors down presented us with frozen bags of his sumptuous meaty marinara sauce. Giving and receiving these humble edible gifts felt like a million bucks.

“Sharing with others is the brotherly love way of looking at a dollar,” said Bishop Jake. “We loan our binder or machinery to someone else who doesn’t have one, or our horses. We visit the sick, and we help bring in the harvest for those who can’t. If you didn’t help your neighbor, there would be something wrong.”

Can’t Buy Me Love

George, Paul, Ringo, and John knew it, and so do the Amish: money can’t buy happiness. Smarter, slower money habits can, however, pay off in big dividends. Since I metaphorically hopped in an Amish buggy a little less than a year ago, on a quest to find out what this fascinating culture could teach me about money, the rewards have been manifold.

I learned to pay attention and be mindful of money, to make do with what I already had, and to outsmart my desires and improve my self-control. Flexing that once soft and floppy thrift muscle is now automatic instead of something I have to struggle to do. I’ve discovered how to cut back without feeling deprived; in fact, I feel just the opposite, as if now, on the other side of this quirky Amish trip, I have an abundance of creativity, resourcefulness, and peace I didn’t have before.

I’ve learned to measure spending against my life’s goals and deepest desires, and I have the Amish to thank for it. Their timeless, simple rituals of saving, sharing, and shoofly pie have caused them to thrive for hundreds of years.

May they continue to thrive for hundreds more.