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I HAVE MY MOTHER to thank for my good savings habits. She opened a savings account in my name when I was a kid. She also made sure I had a Christmas Club savings account every year. I was required to make deposits regularly.
I didn’t mow my neighbor’s lawn, have a newspaper route or sell lemonade on my front lawn. Instead, the money I saved came from the allowance my mother paid me.
My brother was the opposite. He was an entrepreneur with a newspaper route. But he was a spender, not a saver.
When I was age nine, my brother drew a hot rod for his high school art class and got an “A.” In the course of showing off his artwork to my parents’ friends, he announced he was going to build this hot rod for me to ride down the hill in front of our home.
In private, he asked me how much money I had in my savings account. After I told him, he said to take it all out to pay for the hot rod’s components. I made the withdrawal. He and I went to the lumberyard, and bought two-by-fours and screws. We spent the afternoon building this incredible riding machine.
At the end of the day, my brother announced he had somewhere else to go, but we’d continue another day. We never did. My father ended up breaking the mock-up for firewood.
The hot rod project was a harbinger of things to come. As an entrepreneur, my brother was a brilliant problem solver, a gifted prototype builder and an enterprising salesman. The problem was, he was an impatient business owner.
He saw dollar signs dancing in his head before they reached his bank account. Instead of producing the products he’d convinced his customers to buy, he was off dreaming up new solutions and neglecting the customers he already had. Eventually, he’d lose sales and close shop.
To my mother’s credit, she always treated my brother and me the same. She’d purchase savings bonds for both of us. Her generosity increased after my father died and she received the proceeds from his life insurance.
In time, she’d buy savings bonds for me, my brother, her grandkids and her great-grandkids. She also opened up mutual fund accounts for my brother and me. She wasn’t a great investor, but she was a great saver.
Saving was always very important to my mother—but not to my brother. He viewed my mother’s gifts as money to be spent, not savings to be conserved. He not only cashed in the mutual fund and savings bonds given to him, but also spent his kids’ and grandkids’ savings bonds as well.
My mother was concerned about my brother’s behavior. One day, she told me to come to her house. We both went to her bank’s safe-deposit box, where she gave me the savings bonds that she’d bought for me. I think she didn’t want them falling into the wrong hands. When my brother found out, he was angry.
I always viewed the savings bonds from my mother as bonus money. I knew they were there. I hung on to them until I needed the money or until they matured after 30 years. Since I had other money, most of the bonds remained in my safe-deposit box until they matured. We only cashed in my son’s bonds so we could deposit the money into a savings vehicle better suited to a special needs child.
I adopted my mother’s attitude toward saving. I viewed money as something I’d need down the road. I’m sure I missed out on some of the things that money can buy. Other people had ideas for how I should spend my savings. Looking back, I don’t think any of those suggested purchases would have made me happier.
When the lottery jackpot first reached $1 million, a co-worker asked me what I’d do if I won. I said, “I’d put it in the bank.”
She said, “Figures.”
I’m grateful my mother taught me the savings habit, because I always had money, even during my many bouts of unemployment. Savings put a roof over my head and food on our table. My brother couldn’t always say the same.
I may not have bought as many things as other people. But I sure got a lot of free toasters, radios and saber saws, thanks to the savings accounts I opened all over town.
David Gartland was born and raised on Long Island, New York, and has lived in central New Jersey since 1987. He earned a bachelor’s degree in math from the State University of New York at Cortland and holds various professional insurance designations. Dave’s property and casualty insurance career with different companies lasted 42 years. He’s been married 36 years, and has a son with special needs. Dave has identified three areas of interest that he focuses on to enjoy retirement: exploring, learning and accomplishing. Pursuing any one of these leads to contentment. Check out Dave’s earlier articles.
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David:
Your story gave me a couple of great memories about my mom.
My father was a career soldier. He served in the US Army in WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam. He retired in 1974, as the CSM of US Army Special Forces. He was the highest ranking enlisted Green Beret in the Army.
Throughout their marriage, my dad always had a “War Bond” deducted from his pay. (The name stuck with him throughout his career, although they weren’t really War Bonds after 1946.)
My mom kept those Bonds in a shoe box and over the years the box got fuller and fuller. By the time my dad retired, the box was full. I do not know exactly how much was in the shoe box, but when my mom passed away in 2010, after having been widowed for 30 years (my dad passed in 1980, 6 years into his retirement,) living on his military retirement and social security, my mother had over $215,000 in CDs, and I am pretty sure those CDs were purchased with some of those Bonds.
To say my mom was frugal would be an understatement. She was a German by birth, marrying my father in 1958, after he and my mother divorced in 1956. She married my dad, who had 5 children when they married, and she raised us as her own. She had the ability to stretch a dollar in ways unimaginable today. I got my savings education from her, as well as the belief in myself that was never received from any of the teachers I had thought my primary education years.
We all love our mom’s but I know I loved her, at least a little bit more than most.
As Bob Hope use to say, “Thanks for the Memories.”
It’s really amazing how 2 kids in the same household, raised by the same parents can differ in outcomes, personality, success, and other important measures.
I think it was Thomas Sowell who pointed this out and asked how we can hope to achieve equal outcomes among kids raised in different households If kids in the same household have different outcomes.
Among my 12 brothers and sisters the difference in wealth is astonishing. No one is going hungry and we would not let it happen to any of our siblings. However, it has been a constant reminder to me of mother nature (nature/genetics) and my mother’s hard work (nurture) in making sure we had a good chance at success.
Dave, your story rings true. Our parents set a great example, but apparently he didn’t get the memo. Thankfully his career as a public servant has left him with a nice pension.