Childhood Money Memories - the Redux

 Thought you might enjoy this classic post from many years back, edited and updated a bit. (I'm still having to send most of my old posts back to 'draft' status...someone is still trying to piggyback their posts onto mine.)

While the hambone is simmering in navy bean soup (it's the Michigan coming out in me), I ran across some bloggers talking about growing up -- and how they felt about money.

What are some of your childhood memories of money?

A few for me:

*Watching my brother pick up yet another dime or nickel from the ground...I rarely seemed to find any. (Daughter #2 has this talent, as well.) Worrying that I was going to lose the grimy pennies or nickel clutched in the fuzz at the bottom of my pocket. Admiring the shiny plastic coin purse or wallet I got for my birthday, and feeling pride at the dollar bills stashed inside.

*Halloween candy -- with Brother helping eat up my share. (He kept his under his bed, until it was hard and crunchy.) Christmas candy went the same route. (We rarely got any $$ for birthdays, though we had presents and a special cake.)

*A metal bank -- with a hand that reached under the door and snatched your coin, before yanking it back. (I always preferred coins to dollar bills -- the bigger, the better.) Large glass gumball machines that demanded a nickel -- or a quarter for a jawbreaker. Glass cases at the Ben Franklin five-and-dime, full of candy. (If I was feeling wealthy, I'd get 10 cents' worth of heart-shaped redhots.) The chocolate-covered peanuts the Mama invariably brought back from a shopping trip. (I preferred red licorice -- it lasted longer and didn't melt in your pocket.)

*A trip to the library on Saturday mornings -- then a stop at the ice cream store across the street. Should I try to work my way through the 24-or-so flavors...or stick with bubble gum, my favorite? (I usually caved to the latter.) Then it was on to the store for the week's groceries. We invariably had hamburgers and french fries for supper that night.

*Selling corn and raspberries (from our garden) out by the road to passing motorists, with a few homemade potholders of my own on the table, as well.

*Picking fruit -- especially blueberries and strawberries. We couldn't afford the little plastic boxes at the supermarket, but standing in the sun, popping a warm berry in your mouth, was a pleasure not to be bought at the store. My grandma in a feedsack apron, scarf wrapped around her head, looking like the pictures of European peasants I saw in books. (Europe was an incredible far-off place to this Michigan farmgirl. I had no idea I'd visit there in my college years.) Buckets of berries, poured carefully into quart boxes. Then home to make jam, with the sweetness permeating the kitchen air -- and 'foam' scraped off to eat on a cracker. Jars lined up on the table, with a hazy skim of wax protecting the fruit.

*Starting work at the hardware store, age 15. I worked there 5 days a week -- no Sunday or Thursday -- all through high school, and some college breaks and summers. I was so excited: instead of the 75 cents I was paid for babysitting, I would get a munificent $1.50 an hour!
(Daughters yawned at this...they got $5-6 hourly babysitting one kid.)

*Having a bowl of clam chowder one snowy day during lunch break from the hardware store -- and tipping the waitress $5. (Left a thank you note, too. She WAS great, even to a snot-nosed high schooler like me.) Watching the farmers come into Cnossen's for coffee and a doughnut, then across the street to pick up a part at the hardware store. Running across the street at breaktime to the bakery for a large, warm oatmeal cookie. (A huge splurge I didn't dare to attempt much -- cost perhaps 50 cents!)

*Buying The Mama an angel candle that cost TEN WHOLE DOLLARS for Christmas. I cannot even now tell you how much that sum represented back then. Must have been about 8th grade. (She never burned it -- I brought it home from her estate.)

     Saving for other presents took a very long time. Invariably they were homemade.

*Spending a day shopping 'downtown' (the la-dee-dah spot in Grand Rapids) with The Mama, cousins and our aunt. We'd head straight to Wurzburg's, have a chef salad at their lunchroom, then analyze the dresses before going down to the bargains in the basement. (To this day, I still associate chef salads and Wurzburg's -- long out of business -- with careless, prodigal luxury.) After a few more stops to check clothes styles, we'd go to the fabric store and pick out a pattern and fabric as close to the store models as we could get. My mom sewed beautifully -- she often did tailoring for other people, including suits and wedding gowns. Excepting cousins' hand-me-downs, I don't think I had a storebought dress until I was a junior in high school.

*Saving half my money for college. No matter what, even though this was a far-off dream back in the late 60s and 70s. Ten percent for tithing, the rest was mine for whatever was needed. (I tried very hard not to ask my folks for cash -- that's what jobs were for, although I did get 50 cents a week in allowance through middle school. Again, it's difficult to express HOW MUCH that 50 cents represented.) Dollar by dollar, that money built up my savings account -- and was enough to pay a good chunk of my first year in college.

*Working, working, working. Taking any job I could find at Grand Rapids Baptist College. That ended up including housecleaning, secretarial work for a CPA, selling at a pick-your-own apple orchard, waitressing, tutoring, typing papers for other students, teaching...and working the Sunday morning shift washing dishes in the "Pit," the college cafeteria. I would come back to the dorm exhausted, smelling of grease and eggs. (It was good training for a short stint at Wal-Mart years later, doing much the same thing...but adding making cotton candy and popcorn.)

*Grad school at the University of Michigan. Living on canned spaghetti, invites to the local commune from a fellow English Lit buddy, or the $1.35 fried rice special at a local Chinese restaurant in Ann Arbor. (Where, incidentally, I met a tall North Carolina boy, fresh out of the Navy, one day!) My home was the attic of a gracious, ivy-over-brick 'mansion.' I lived there, and got breakfast in return for keeping the house clean and looking after their 12-year-old daughter. (Lunch too, if I came home and walked the dog.) He was the chairman of the Classics department, she was a lawyer -- and the oldest daughter of the British novelist Evelyn Waugh. I read many British novels that year, and developed an appreciation for Victorian art -- especially Augustus Egg -- and Italian Nativity sets.

"The Traveling Companion," one of Egg's paintings

*Our first (student) apartment as a married couple -- $115 a month. Even that amount was hard to come up with, and I was working full-time! We ate a lot of ramen (especially a brand called Sapporo Ichiban, which was 25 lavish cents), chicken noodle soup and peanut butter sandwiches back then. I threw a surprise birthday party for the Brick our first year -- invited 11 or 12 people. I didn't think of our place being small until then. It was so crowded that no one literally had room to sit down. (My brother-in-law spent the evening lying underneath the dining room table.)

Writing these down, I suddenly realized -- a lot of my money-related childhood memories also have something to do with food! Weird...

This would have been incredibly luxurious, back when I was a kid.