December 6, 2014 Advent with SusieJ

Her first nickel

My sister Mary often said, "Mom still has her first nickel."

And Mary was right.

Mom had a strong belief in the value of thrift, stemming from her parents who weathered the Depression, and her own stint as a single mother considering welfare. Actually, I think it was as genetic as her brown eyes. My grandparents came from southwestern Germany, Swabia or Schwaben in German, the area around Stuttgart, whose residents are stereotyped to this day as very tight with a Euro. They are people who shop at Aldi and Ikea. They have two words for inexpensive: "billig," meaning cheap, and "preiswert," literally priceworthy, meaning a good buy. Everyone has these concepts, but Germans always turn it into a single word.

Mom shopped Aldi and Ikea, too. She loved a bargain, but was never, as the Brits say, pennywise and pound foolish. She bought solid, mid-line brands that should last for twenty years or longer. She made an annual pilgrimage to the Reading outlets to stock up on underthings, socks and sleepwear. We never replace anything that still works; when the lightbulb died in the twenty-year-old microwave (bought only when microwaves were proven useful and had come down to a reasonable price), she kept using it. So what if you had to open it up to give the food a quarter turn a couple times? We got cable only when teenager me thought everyone else already had it, but no premium channels. In all likelihood, Mom had gotten a raise, part of which would cover cable.

In my lifetime, Mom owned five cars: something I don't remember, the '74 Dodge Dart my parents bought to replace that, the used '82 Chrysler she bought to replace it five years after the divorce, my stepfather's Jetta, and finally the conversion van when Mom couldn't get in and out of the Jetta. Money spent on maintenance was always a good buy: she had the van repainted after ten years because it ran without problem.

Notice there was not a BMW, Audi or Mercedes listed in that list? Mid-range is what we buy. She bought me a single piece of Calphalon cookware (it was on sale), but herself owned and gave me a set of Farberware. I still use Mom's twelve-quart stock pot, her mother's four-quart Revereware double boiler, and my father's mother's small cast-iron pan. I laugh at All-Clad. We drive a Toyota now (that a tree fell on during Superstorm Sandy two years ago, but it still runs, and eventually Jorj will find and fix all the leaks). Quality is important and practical, but paying double the price without getting double the quality is nonsensical.

Oddly, for me, this carries over to playing on-line games. Not just a disgust of pay-to-win games that are free to start but frustrating and icky unless you buy all the in-game upgrades. No, I won't even spend fake game money in the game. I carefully save my fake money, just in case I need it for some fake crisis. Mom, you taught me well.

My mother and her father. Isn't he handsome?