Thrifty Mommy

Thrifty lessons from my FABULOUS grandparents.

by kellys on July 12th, 2006

As my grandmother gets older, I remember fondly the things I learned from her.  She and my Pappaw (bet you can’t ell they lived in the south) were the perfect pair.  He worked on the farm every day and she crocheted and took care of us during the summer and holidays.  They bought most of our school clothes and I loved our schedule.  We would shop and visit people on Monday and Wednesday, Tuesday we would watch TV and swim or some other activity, Thursdays we would have dinner on the table at noon for my Pappaw and Friday was a free day.  Tuesday and Thursday nights were domino parties and there was a dance at some dance hall 1-2 Saturday nights a month.  My Pappaw would smell horrible towards the end as he was allergic to deodorant and never sat down to rest.  I could talk forever about my grandparents.  But what I want you to learn from them as I did was their thrifty lifestyle.

I am sure they didn’t have to be so frugal since they had money to spend.  Grandma always said they didn’t need anything so she wanted to spend her money on the grandkids.  What I remember and will always stick out in my mind was one particular shopping trip.  We were at JC Penny’s at the mall and Grandma was trying to write a check.  The lady asked for ID and Grandma gave her driver’s license.  The lady said that she needed 2 forms of ID and asked for a credit card.  You should have seen the lady’s face when my grandma told her that she didn’t have one.  Grandma said that she and Pappaw lived by the rule that if they didn’t have cash to pay for something then they either saved for it or they didn’t need it bad enough.  The lady smiled but said that she still needed 2 forms of ID.  Grandma just gave her cash instead.  She liked to save her cash for food and gas and wanted write checks at stores.  In this case, she was forced to change her mind.

This stuck in my mind for all these years.  When I was single, I had a credit card that I paid off every month just so I could have good credit.  It is a sad state of affairs in the USA when you have to have credit to get a good credit rating.  You would think that your score would be higher if you didn’t have any debt but that is not necessarily the way it works.  Now that I am married, we have 1 credit card.  I have chosen to not carry it but let my husband use it.  I know I might use it for something that we don’t need if I had it.  Besides, I pay with cash for just about everything but airline tickets.  Actually, the last time we bought airline tickets, we paid cash for them as well.  I even give my debit card to hold reservations.    That doesn’t mean that we don’t have debt.  We are in the process of trying to get debt free in everything but our mortgage.  Once we get there, we can tackle that monster one month at a time.

Why do I write such a long story when you can usually read them in 30 seconds(hi Hsien), because you should know that it is possible to live without credit cards and eventually a mortgage, hopefully, in today’s world while raising children and living on only 1.5 incomes.  You just have to sacrifice and be responsible.  Don’t give up.  You have to work on it every day.

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