The Curse of Frugality

The Curse of Frugality What? Surely most people do not have a problem like this. I suspect that most people are more concerned with resisting the impulse to overspend. Not me. I’ve gotten way too good at not spending money, at denying myself. From where did this strange behavior spring? I grew up in a quite traditional middle class family. My dad was a banker. When we lived in Seattle, we owned a small vacation cabin on Puget Sound. When we moved east to Philadelphia, we vacationed on Moosehead Lake in northern Maine every summer. It seemed to me that our family had no trouble affording our vacations. Money was never a big issue in my family. My two brothers and I received small allowances when we were young. I babysat. One brother had a paper route. I don’t remember being obsessed with saving the money I earned babysitting. My parents paid for almost all of my college education. I had a very part-time job as a book report taker and I worked summers in a bookstore to cover incidental college expenses. After graduation I taught sixth grade but soon quit to welcome my first child. Three others appeared in quick succession. My husband supported us by working as an insurance agent. I fiddled around with writing when the children were napping. N When the children were ages five through ten, everything changed. We decided to give our family an international experience. My husband quit his job, we pulled our children out of school in March 1970 and took off for Europe for six months. I’d been born in England, lived there off and on until I was ten and was anxious to share my family with my British relatives after our tour of the continent. Before we left home I made sure to bring along notebooks. My goal was to write a journal that I planned to call Europe with Four Children Every Day, a take off on the then popular book, Europe on Five Dollars a Day. Our first stop was Gutersloh, Germany where we picked up our Volkswagen van, specially outfitted for camping. It had a water tank, a sink, stove and cozy but comfortable-enough spots for all six of us to sleep. For five months we toured the continent, going as far north as Norway and as far south as Turkey. We spent the final month of the trip in the UK, visiting my relatives and old friends of my family. The trip has had a huge influence on our children. At one point, three of the four were living outside the USA, in Tokyo, Mozambique, and in the UK We were back home, only a little late for the beginning of the 1970-71 school year. My husband rented what had once been a pastor’s office for $10 a month and set himself up as an entrepreneur, embarking on the fulfillment of a long-held dream of his. It was no surprise that he had his ups and downs in this endeavor. Never again would there be a monthly paycheck arriving at our house. That fact did not seem to bother him in the least. But it bothered me. We still had four children to raise. In time I would come to think of him as a “raging entrepreneur.” During one year’s end totaling up, we counted 17 different projects that he was engaged in. My frugality gene emerged full-blown. There seemed to be no financial certainty at our house. I found a few freelance writing opportunities but my income wasn’t anywhere near enough for us to live on. I swung into frugality mode. By the end of the decade, we had filed for bankruptcy. After that my husband gave up entrepreneurship and found work teaching business courses at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. I had to chuckle when I learned that he was to teach a class called business cycles. I cobbled together work that included initiating a newsletter service, contributing to a local magazine and newspaper, and continuing some freelance writing. Somehow we rebounded and were able to keep our financial heads above water—just barely. As time went by, our financial situation improved. I found a job coaching low-income single teen parents to become job-ready and to pass the GED exam, giving them a high school diploma. I was free in the summer months. When I became a widow in 1991, I took advantage of my work-free summers and began leading bicycle tours around the West and in Canada. The job paid poorly but the benefits were good. Great travel experiences, meeting all kinds of interesting people, and staying in lovely old New England Inns where both the lodging and food were very special. In 2004, I spent nine months in Mozambique where my younger daughter and her family were living. I did some substitute teaching while there. I also had a chance to visit Zimbabwe and South Africa. I returned to my teaching job at home for a year and then decided it was time to retire. I loved my job, but there were lots of other things I wanted to do. I had used the $34,000 payout from my husband’s only life insurance, to put a down payment on a small house with a two bedroom apartment in the basement. That turned out to be a good move for me. I was able to use the income from the apartment to pay off the mortgage on my house well before it was due.. The apartment continues to be part of my monthly income. My family has grown! Each of my four children has produced three of their own for a total of six granddaughters and six grandsons., now ranging in age from 15 to 31. I didn’t discover the joy of running until I was in my 30s. I was 40 by the time I completed my first race in 1976. There were only a few over 40 women running back then. I’ve had so much fun with the sport! In 2016 I became a member of the USATF running masters hall of fame. In 2019 I was named masters road runner of the year for women ages 80-84. By the time one reaches that age group, the competition is pretty slim! These days I’m committed to putting in 4 miles on my feet every day, almost all of it walking now. Occasionally I break into a run. A few weeks ago I managed a slow 10k race and it felt good to be able to do that. Running is a sport that suits my frugality. All you need to participate is a decent pair of shoes. These days I’m trying hard to scale down my frugality factor. I’ve joined Netflix and decided it is well worth it to buy really good tea. In the days to come I will be working toward becoming a spendthrift. I hope I am up to that challenge.