Never Spend a Dime

Everything I know (or should know) about money, personal finance, and debt I learned just from being at my Grandmother's side and watching her live her life. The problem exists in that I wasn't serious about applying the life lessons she taught me to all of my life. Especially when it came to money management.

You see, it was easy to dismiss what she did with her money as something "she had to do" because of her generation. Credit cards were not prevalent (although, in retrospect, I had a credit card when my Grandmother was still alive and she did not -- ever), she was content with not having a huge house and fancy cars. As a matter of fact, my Grandmother didn't even own a car, nor did she have a driver's license.

But what she did own was a common sense approach to money and all that that entails. She was living debt free before being debt free was fashionable. She managed her personal finances out of envelopes and handkerchiefs. Oh, she had money in the bank and actually knew the banker and they knew her. What they didn't know was she probably had just as much money in the back of her top drawer chest at home as she had in the bank. She had investments long before employers were offering matching 401k's. I figured that out upon her death when the U.S. Savings Bonds she had been purchasing and saving for all her children and grandchildren returned more than double on most of her investment.

If I had to guess what my Grandmother made per year it would be less than $15,000. I'm serious, but what she was able to do better than me, better than my siblings who make 3 times more than me, was maximize her income.

She taught me many lessons about money, lessons I didn't even know she was teaching, but the biggest lesson she taught me? She never spent a dime. Literally, when she received change back, and especially dimes, she'd carry them home in her coin purse or wrap them carefully in a handkerchief and store them away in that top dresser drawer. Once a year, usually before Christmas, she would take them to the bank to cash them in. I never even considered how she could get me all those wonderful Christmas gifts, along with my cousins and our parents. Other than thinking she was rich somehow. The truth is, even though she wasn't rich monetarily, she was rich in knowledge and determination and shear will. She just refused to spend more than she made and she refused to spend all that she did make.

Over the course of this blog as I try to get a handle on my own finances and get to the point where I'm debt free, I'll share all those grains of wisdom my Grandmother passed along to me. Many of which I didn't recognize at the time, but know now what a great guru she was.