one week restore: money, money, money

 when I'm "untogether", I must say that

so are my finances.

annoyingly so

I'm usually quite prudent with money. But when I'm "all over the place" so to speak, then so are my finances. Being this way - scattered and wasting money, go hand in hand with me. When I am out of sorts. Otherwise, no. 

Where and how I learnt about money, and how to handle it, is, like everything else in life, a story.

During my younger years, my Mum had very little money. She worked two jobs, and had five children at the time. With moi-self being the eldest, and her right-hand person. For all chores. As it is when there are quite a few children. 

    

(the first four of us Little Inch Girls)

We didn't get pocket money, and had a very spartan life. Out of necessity. So if you each actually got something that was a food treat, like some lollies, or a doughnut, you had them, fast, so that you didn't have to share them. Except daughter number two. She would eke hers out. Yes, and do the child thing of slowly enjoying them in front of us. Quite cute, really. I have often wondered if her ability to wait for things to enjoy them, and the strong work ethic that Mum installed in us, were a strong factor in her becoming a property millionaire at a time when so few were.

But this background was not my learning pool for money. Not at all. In those years, I felt firmly that if you (meaning me) had something, like a toy or a book, then you shared it with the others. Of course.  This has never left me, I'm still a sharer of many things, and glad of it.

I might add that there is a family story of how my small sisters once cut a small piece of chewing gum into four tiny pieces, and shared it amongst themselves. 

And that's something that many people do not, and will never, understand. Being poor does not always teach us about money. Because you never know if you are going to get something again. Whether it be food, an outing, toys, clothes - whatever. For some people it might have taught them, but for many of us, no.

What it did do for me, and for which I am extremely grateful ("thank you, Universe") is teach me how to share and be unselfish. As a way of life.

I am very careful about money. I know that if I had always stayed living with Mum, that I would have just shared my money. I would never have saved any, nor used it for holidays or teenage stuff. Which is how it should have been, as sharing is essential in a large family, and Mum went on to have three more children with my Step Father. 

(Christmas when I went back to live with Mum, all eight of her children, I'm second from right)

So, aside from what I've already said, how did I get it together with money?  I learnt by example, and not by words, from my beloved Nanna, when I went to live with her and my aunty Margaret who was not much older than me. Nanna gave us so much freedom. I usually would would walk to and from school with my best friend, or we would share her bike, and it was a very considerable distance. The money saved was used for lollies, an icecream, a burger (and they were quite small in those days) or a doughnut (also very small), and it was only ever one treat, walking on the way home from school. Here I learnt that if you went without on one level, you could save that money for something that you really wanted. I still do this too. Obviously now it's not about saving for teenage food treats, nor any food treats, but for special things which are not essential, but that I would love. And I do not do this sort of buying very often. So I manage to save my dollars, bit by bit, just with being careful with not spending. 

And this is one of the main areas that go awry when I'm "untogether".  So, on my week of restore, I have a mantra:

make every dollar count

I can honestly say that this has been having such a strong effect. One of my daughters has suggested that maybe I don't need to buy organic for a lot of food. I could almost hear "ker-ching!" in my head. Ker-ching is like the sound that an antique till made when you rang up the dollars and cents amount that a customer spent. And I actually used one of those in one of my jobs in a shop decades ago. So ker-ching really means that you are putting money in your own till, your own profits. Money saved. 

For many years, if I went to a mall, I'd take my own sandwich and sit in a sunny area and eat it it with a bottle of water that I also took. I'd say to myself: "ten dollars", meaning that I had just saved that amount. This sort of behaviour is very "ker-ching!"

This is my new "thing". I'm reinstating it, if I'm shopping on my own. Making every dollar count. I heartily dislike mall food anyway. And I take my own food if I'm driving long distance by myself. 

But Nanna, Margaret and money are really about lifestyle, so that's the next post.

Does anyone have any of their own $-saving hints?