I used to be more frugal than I am now. I sometimes wish I could be as frugal as my grandma was or at least as frugal as we used to be when we were living at poverty level. During those years, I remember reading books for tips on frugality, only to find I was already more frugal than the book recommendations! For example, one book recommended renting movies instead of buying them or going to the theater. Well, we were checking our movies out from the library – for free!
I was the oldest of seven children growing up. I observed my mother handling money poorly. Not that we had a lot to begin with, but she was careless with keeping track of money. In comparison, my maternal grandmother kept track of every single penny. She had these little books listing every single thing she purchased, every bill she paid, every bit of money she loaned to family members.
We were poor, and we didn't have a lot of extras. When I would babysit, which was seldom, in the poor neighborhood in which we lived, I never charged a set fee. I'd take whatever the parents could pay, and I'd clean their kitchen, wash their dishes and clean their house (which was always a mess). The few times I babysat for a multitude of children, I was always underpaid. Like, two couples might pay me $5 for watching five children for six hours. I'd take the money home and give it to my mother, for we were always broke. My mom paid us an allowance – one quarter a week – this was during the late 70s, early 80s. The only problem is she didn't even have an extra $1.75 a week to pay allowance to her seven children. Instead she kept track of it in a little notebook. But we didn't have any extra money ever, so we never got to spend any of that accrued allowance.
I vowed to do a better job as an adult.
Click here to continue reading My Money Story – Teenage Years.
My money story isn’t as colorful as yours, that’s for sure! It’s amazing what people do to save money. It sounds like you have a pretty good work ethic, which serves you well, I’m sure. But it’s hard to compare yourself to others since that can make you envious, sometimes. I’m impressed at what you overcame in your youth.
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Mrs. Dimes, you are right, I do have a strong work ethic and I am grateful for that. Thank you for visiting my blog and thank you for your kind words!
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this is a great story. I think I am going to link to it if you don’t mind. What is a deodorant stone by the way? I guess I could probably google it. I can’t believe this family was well off enough and yet they took all your money. You definitely overcame a lot… i hope you feel comfortable enough at some point to elaborate on what drove you back into debt.
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$3,000 is a relatively inexpensive amount for a wedding nowadays, good job! My average wedding cost I go to is around $50,000! Yikes!
We spent about $700 on the actual wedding and food (small wedding), and another $1,800 on two round trip flights.
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Mrs. Accountability Reply:
February 20th, 2010 at 10:31 am
FS: $50K weddings?! Ridiculous! I bought my home and 3.5 acres for just a few thousand more than that! Sounds like you did a fabulous job on keeping the costs of your wedding down, too! Thanks for your comment! Mrs. A
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Yep, actually the last two were around $80,000! It’s not cheap out here in San Fran, but still… I would never spend that much.
That said, if they have the money to spend and not go into debt, then why not I say. Hopefully it only happens once!
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My family struggled financially when I was a kid. However, my mother kept track of everything right down to the last penny! I thought at times it was a ridiculous thing to keep track of every penny, but I thank her for teaching me the importance of doing this. If it wasn’t for budgeting every last cent I don’t know where I would be today. Probably broke and not knowing where all the money went!
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