When one of my composition students noticed a large X scrawled over writing on the back of classroom exercise forms, she said, “You must be a tightwad.”
“So? What’s wrong with being tight? Tightwads are thrifty, and thriftiness is a good practice. I don’t believe in wasting anything, so I use both sides of all sheets of paper,” I answered.
“Whatever,” she shrugged indifferently, confirming what I already knew: Most young people don’t give much thought to fiscal responsibility.
I live reasonably well on pauper’s pay (I’m a schoolteacher), but only because my budget requires strict accounting of all expenditures. I’ve learned that frugal people find ways to survive, even in the most difficult economic times.
Like me, Benjamin Franklin was often accused of being a tightwad, but he wasn’t; he just knew how to keep income and outgo in a ratio that protected his pocketbook.
He once said, “I’ve always regretted buying a penny whistle,” meaning he spent impulsively for something that gave only brief pleasure, and then was worthless.
My grandmother Reed also detested spending before thinking. She ran a country store on Dad’s farm, and when she wasn’t busy with customers, she’d open the latest Sears Roebuck catalog, a tome as large as a good-sized dictionary, and look through it. If an item interested her, she tore out the page. When finished, she organized the removed pages from top to bottom, with what she wanted most on top.
Stretched out on the counter with chin in hands, I enjoyed sharing this simple pastime with her, but I noticed that she rarely ordered anything. Instead, she’d wait until the next Sears catalog came, look at new items not in the previous one, reshuffle her pages, and discard old ones.
One day I asked, “Granny, why do you go to all that trouble, only to end up throwing most of those pages away, and rarely ordering anything?”
“Because in time I realize they are wants — not needs.”
Recently, the wisdom of her answer became apparent to me when I was flipping through gardening catalogs. Almost every page pictured something I’d love to have to enhance my passion for gardening, but later, when I looked at my plants, I thought … they’re doing fine. Impulsively ordering from those catalogs won’t make them any finer.
So, in a modernized version of Granny’s technique, I now scan pages from catalogs and store them in my computer in a folder entitled “Garden 2013.” If I’m alive to garden next year, no doubt I’ll end up deleting most of the items scanned.
Russian writer Leo Tolstoy once said, “Always remember how passionately you yearned in the past for many things you hate or despise now. Remember how many things you lost trying to satisfy former desires. The same thing could happen now, with desires that excite you at present. Tame your desires, calm them; this is most beneficial, and most achievable.”
If I stick to that advice, I won’t regret buying a penny whistle.
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
