“Whoever said money can’t buy happiness simply didn’t know where to go shopping.”
From my window, the day looks lovely, sunny and bright, but I know all that sun is merely a backdrop for the cold. It’s a day to stay in, stay comfy and watch the scify marathon of disaster movies. A black hole just ate St. Louis and is on the move.
I never noticed dust when I was a kid. I think the ability to see it comes in adulthood, for most of us anyway. I can see my house is dusty, and I’ve been using my sweatshirt sleeve as a dust rag as I walk by a table or picture frame, but that’s as far as I’m going. The rest of the dust can have its way for a while.
Today I’m going to start wrapping Christmas presents. Because of my surgery, I never did get to the Christmas box downstairs. Most of my family and friends got their large presents, but the smaller ones stayed in the cellar. I figure the disaster movies and wrapping will be fine ways to spend the afternoon.
Saturday was when I used to get my allowance. It was fifty cents a week, a tidy sum, and happily for me it was never tied to any specific chores. Many Saturdays I’d walk uptown and buy myself a new book. I always got a penny in change, and it too had value. My father thought me a spendthrift. He told me some of my money should be saved for an emergency. I was ten and couldn’t conjure any sort of an emergency even in my imagination which would demand my paltry savings. I had no idea my father was trying to teach me a life skill. I just knew I had fifty cents burning my pocket.
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
January 15, 2011 at 2:20 pm
I wish they had had a disaster movie night over here today, because it seems all channels thinks Saturday is a day when they should show crap! it feels like an early night would be the right thing for me today.
I can´t remember how much I got, but I did spend much of it so I could buy something more expensive later on instead. Mostly it was a book or a toy 🙂
Have a great day now!
Christer.
January 16, 2011 at 10:16 am
Christer,
I watched all day and then they had a new disaster movie at 9 which I also watched. I think they covered every way the Earth could be disturbed.
I was never a saver!
January 15, 2011 at 2:53 pm
Saturday was also allowance day in my house. We lived near a theater that had kid’s shows on Saturday afternoons. For twenty-five cents we saw several cartoons, a couple of shorts and the main feature. The main feature was usually a Sci-Fi, horror, or Western flick. I think a box of popcorn came with the admission or else it was very cheap. The remaining money usually went to buy a comic book and some candy. Money burned a hole in my pocket when I was a kid. I only learned the art of saving when I was a teenager and started earning my own money doing summer or weekend jobs.
January 16, 2011 at 10:18 am
Bob,
I too went too the Saturday matinee but my mother always gave me the money. I never thought of using my allowance. My movie was first a dime then a quarter, and we’d have an extra nickel to buy candy. I always got something like a Sugar Daddy because it lasted so long.
When I was teaching, I saved like mad so I could travel every summer for most of the summer.
January 15, 2011 at 4:19 pm
.50 cents was a lot of money back then. Kids in my neighborhood could OD on that much candy it would buy. But I loved delivering the Washington Post. My first check was $43.88 which I will never forget because I sat up all evening with Mom and Dad thinking with them all the stuff I could buy, like a Go Cart at the new Sears. Sadly, I was talked into keeping $3 of it and putting the rest in a savings share account at the Pentagon where Dad worked. The other checks went there too with me having to come up with reasons to buy stuff so I could keep a little out for myself. But that was a huge amount of money for a 15 years old. But I learned you had to work hard for it. I would love to have those days back again. Good memories, good post today. Enjoy your Christmas chore.
January 16, 2011 at 10:21 am
Z&Me,
Yes, it was a treasure to have that much money. I always got it in a fifty cent piece as well.
My first job was the summer after college when I worked for Woolworth’s. I really didn’t like that job much, but it was money. I had to put most of it away for my expense money at college. My dad paid tuition and bought books, but the playtime money had to come from my bank account. You can imagine how long that lasted!
January 15, 2011 at 4:40 pm
Most of the time we, my brother, sister and I, got a quarter allowance but we were “given the opportunity” to increase that tidy sum, by completing, or at least making progress on jobs and projects around the house.
When I was about 12 or so, I went through training for our volunteer fire department. It was a small town population wise, but land wise, it was the biggest in the state, so lots of volunteers were needed to cover the distances. And the school was just a quick run from the fire department.
One time the power company actually paid us for the hours we put in working a fire on one of it power line pathways through the woods. I go a princely sum of twelve or fourteen dollars. I had been saving for a ‘fly by wire’ gas model airplane and this made retrieving it from the local gas station that much quicker. My folks were big on the saving for the good things of life theory. I took it home and read everything and became familiar with everything in the box. I can’t tell you how my heart pounded with excitement as I threaded the control ‘wires’ and test started the .020 engine. It took me about three days to settle down enough or get enough nerve up to try to fly the thing.
I enlisted the help of a friend, as someone had to hold and release it when the guy on the ‘control’ end was ready. To shorten the story, after a few short training flights, I forgot one of the basic tenants of fly by wire is that the wires must be kept under tension to maintain control. The result was a header into the tarmac which damaged the engine.
Total elapsed flying time was less than 20 minutes. Not to say it hadn’t been great fun, but the disappointment was difficult to deal with and brought a lot of doubt into the ‘best things are worth saving for’ theory.
Carl
January 16, 2011 at 10:24 am
Carl,
That seems really young to be a fireman, volunteer or not, but I guess it was having enough bodies which seemed important.
How horribly disappointed you must have been. I would have learned to curse in time for having them when my plane took its final dive.
My dad always felt if you bought it yourself, you’d be more careful of your stuff.
January 15, 2011 at 4:41 pm
The Trustee Savings Bank was the destination for a gift of size. The arrival of Uncle Claude meant a crisp One Pound note with numerous possibilities. Save half, spend half was the compromise.
A weekly allowance was a thing of promise but rarely delivered. Accrued, discounted, written off, we learned early on to rely upon our own endeavours for those precious shillings. Newspaper delivery allowed me to buy that bike, read all the news and occasionally run into parked cars.
Somewhere in the middle of this youthful financial storm was a weekly comic. The subscriptions were usually short and involving some boring educational item. The paper money made sure that I was well read in the delights of The Victor and The Hotspur and every now and again The Beano
January 16, 2011 at 10:26 am
My Dear Hedley,
Delivering the newspaper was a sexist occupation. Only boys delivered.My only opportunity for extra money was babysitting when I was around 12 or so. It was fifty cents and hour back then and I made some good money. It, of course, was never saved. I always needed something, maybe that new 45.
January 15, 2011 at 5:46 pm
We didn’t get allowances. We might be allowed to keep 5 cents of the change if we were sent to the corner store for something.
My first job was a part-time night shift job making landing gear for those balsa-wood rubberband-powered toy planes. I made $25 a week and I thought I could live forever on that kind of money. Most of it went to the bank and the rest went for important teenage stuff like leather sandals and cheap sunglasses.
January 16, 2011 at 10:29 am
Hi Caryn,
We too got to keep some of the change from our store runs. Mostly, like you, we could keep a nickel if there was a lot of change.
I worked in Woolworth’s the summer before college. First I worked the floor filling shelves then I was advanced to the cash register which was boring just standing there and waiting. That was when I firsts tarted saving my money-with college looming I had no choice.