Money Management Advice from Grandpa

The following is a guest post from L.J. Priest.

My grandfather used to say to me “If you take care of your pennies, your dollars will take care of themselves.” And “it’s not what you make, it’s what you save.”

He and my grandmother were frugal, I mean frugal. I can remember when I was younger being appalled at their simplicity. My grandparents lived as though they had nothing, absolutely nothing. But here is the catch – they had more financial security than most people I knew back then and certainly more than many people I know of today.

We jokingly referred to him as “The Bank of Grandpa”. Did you need a loan? Go see grandpa. He would lend you the money and then set up monthly payments for you at 1% less then the banks charged. Got paid on Friday afternoon and didn’t make it to the bank on time? Go see grandpa for cash on hand. He would cash your paycheck and then take it to the bank the next day to be deposited into his own account. He held the mortgages to everyone’s home in the family. He bought land and then sold it off in tracts to his relatives. He invested in small start up companies and helped several people in our area achieve their business dreams.

How was he able to be such a money mogul? It wasn’t as though he had inherited his wealth. My grandfather was born the 13th child of a poor farmer and he was raised during the Great Depression. He and my grandmother knew what it was like to go without. So, when they married, they sat down and discussed their family finances. One of them would not buy anything unless the other agreed. And they both had a knack for saving. “Lisa” he would tell me, “If you don’t own it and you can’t afford it, then you don’t need it.” I watched as he and my grandmother scrutinized their spending and carefully delegated where every penny went.

My grandmother used to wash her tin foil and plastic sandwich bags to use over and over again. She owned a wringer type washer and no dryer. She hung the clothes outside on nice days and inside when the weather was harsh. They owned one vehicle, and although my grandfather had a company car, they went away only when they had places they had to go to. My grandfather never had cable television, a cell phone and still used a party line on his house phone until the day he died. (By the way, when all of my sisters and I became teenagers, our family was politely kicked off that party line.) He split the trash bill among himself and two neighbors, and burned what he could in a burn barrel up behind his house.

I remember in the summer time my grandmother bringing home station wagons full of corn and then spending the next few days blanching and freezing bags of it for the winter months ahead. She canned many vegetables and fruits. She never shopped at the malls and kept her clothes and shoes for many, many years. She took care of what she had as if she might never have a chance to own it again. A credit card? Perish the thought! Why would anyone pay that much interest- why that was highway robbery! Why would you just give your money away that you worked so hard to get? That was another lesson.

My grandparents also despised laziness. “Idle hands are the devil’s tools” we were told. My grandfather started his career working as a water boy on the docks at age 14 at a rate of 25 cents per hour. He worked hard, stayed focused and eventually became superintendent and then vice president of a construction company.

They could have lived a more lavish lifestyle, but they chose not to. They respected the money that God gave them, every penny of it, and they worked to put it to the best use possible. They tithed, of course, but more important they acknowledged the goodness of God every chance they could. They taught us that God, or even the world for that matter, didn’t owe us anything. And that by believing and trusting in Him, and by keeping track of and taking care of the things that He gave us, (including the pennies) we too could live a life a security and peace.

Photo by bebebeaux