At this time of year (as we think of others and buy buy buy to show our love), I find myself going back in time, to thoughts of my maternal grandmother who saved saved saved.
Yes, she was an amazingly frugal woman. She could save to the extreme. Grandma would stash a little away before she paid the bills, before she sent savings to the bank (which she did every pay check). This was her habit until after she passed away. Her thrift became evident when I went home for her funeral.
I was helping my granddad by making up all the beds for him; and as I was tucking the blankets into one of the guest beds, my hand touched something that felt foreign for the underside of a mattress. I lifted the mattress a bit only to find a considerable cachet of cash. I didn’t even count it. I took it straight away to my granddad.
I told him the story… how I came by the money. I waited as Grandpa took it, counted it, held it for a moment. Then he looked up with big tears rolling down both cheeks…. “Your grandma use to squirrel money away to help her kids, the church, maybe something we wanted but didn’t need. I use to wonder how she was doing this when the bank savings kept going up. I never looked around for where she put it… just figured if she thought she needed a safe place, then she needed it.”
What an impact that had on me that day. I decided that I should have a safe place. Maybe not just for money but also things that were valuable to the family or me. So after my grandmother’s service was over and everyone had been hugged, kissed, and helped I boarded a plane for home with a plan to have a secret hiding place for valuables and perhaps a special savings.
I started by stashing money under the mattress like my grandmother. Unfortunately I had two sets of little boy eyes at that time; and they thought this was a game. They kept pulling the cash out and handing it to me saying, “I found it. Go hide it again!”
So I let this be for a while and didn’t look for a safe place. Not until our home was burgled. And what did they steal? None of Hubby’s things… they stole mine! Theft made me re-think the safe place project.
I proceeded to find safe places all over the house. In the family room, in the master closet, in the guest room, in the kids’ rooms in the garage… And yes, I even found one in the laundry room. The trouble was, I could never remember where my safe place WAS. And this would explain why there were so many! Sigh! As I grew older (notice I did not say OLD) I also became a master of multi-tasking… or maybe it was that I was taking care of so many men, and I was trying to do it all at the same time. In the course of man-care, I would lose track of things. I would still try to find a nice safe place… as I tried to care for the six of us all at once. Whatever the reason, I could not remember the safe place once I triumphantly hid an item.
Side Bar: My father once jumped all over me because I had a personal drawer that was a mess… My mother scolded him for chewing me out and told him “Her drawer is messy because she keeps five men clean!” (God bless our mothers!) But while this saved my tail once, it didn’t explain why I would so often lose things… a thing I was careful not to tell my father.
Now stay with me. Fast forward to a few months ago. I either misplaced or actually lost or have put in yet another safe place, my precious and much-valued-by-me ipod! I remember the last place I saw it. I tried to back track. No good. I tried looking in other places where I might have used it last. No good. So a couple of days ago I decided to go through all of handbags… maybe I had left it in one of them. No good again. But I did find $37.00 in cash. (Grandma would have been proud of that!) Then I tried just looking in odd places that seemed like good hiding spots. The corner cabinet. The shelves in the closet. Nope. The crystal cabinet in the kitchen above the roll-top desk. No ipod, but at some point I had turned back into my grandmother and stashed $205.00 in various sized bills. A happy accident to have run on to this cash, yes?
While this has not been a total loss in saving cash, it has pointed out to me that I am most certainly not my grandmother. Yes, I can save. But when I squirrel it away in the best bank in the world, I fail to remember where it is! Perhaps this is why it really IS the best bank. It can’t be spent if it can’t be found!
May your safe places truly serve you well, and be remembered at the most propitious moment!
Best… Carolyn Thomas Temple
Post Script: Bros, should your mother die after your dad, be sure to go through all the pockets before you give my clothes to Good Will!