The Benefit of Hard Times

“I hate that picture!”

Stunned by the stark declaration, we stopped perusing old family photos and looked at my mother for an explanation. She kept flipping through the stack she held in her hands.

Finally my niece broke the silence. “Grandma, what are you talking about?”

“My toes are hanging out.”

Sure enough, a close look at the yellowed, grainy black-and-white photo revealed that the upper on the outside of her left shoe had separated from the sole. A couple of toes poked out.

Mom was a teenager living in the dusty depths of the Great Depression in Kiowa, Kansas, when someone snapped that photo. Seeing a PBS series on the hard scrabble life in the “Dust Bowl” helped me understand. My parents’ frugality was shaped by austere circumstances. One or the other of them often said, “You never know when there will be hard times.” They lived with basic simplicity—food and shelter received more attention than gadgets and leisure.

Financial Turmoil in 2008

Gale force winds devastated the financial landscape in 2008. Investors screamed as the market plunged, rose, and dropped… and dropped some more. Some homeowners abandoned the American dream while others hunkered down hoping to ride out the storm. Employees dreaded the mandatory, company-wide meeting.

The severity of the financial turmoil in 2008 caused some observers to make comparisons with the Great Depression. This prompted me to wonder if our current economic condition might profoundly shape financial behavior today the way the fiscal upheaval of the 1930s molded that generation. Might the difficulties we now face bring correctives to financial habits gone wild?

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

The phrase “reduce, reuse, recycle” is new to me, but the concept describes exactly how my parents lived.

Reduce. My parents produced what they could. Tending a vegetable garden and nurturing fruit trees were just part of the rhythm of life. Mom made dresses and gifts since they had “more time than money.” They bought necessities, but no more. They always looked for items they needed “on-sale,” but rarely bought anything not on the shopping list. And they never considered going into debt to make a purchase. They would rather do without than owe someone. They maintained what they had; my parents could make things last a long time.

As I reflect on my parents, it seems that one lesson folks today might learn would be about living without debt. In 2006, the personal savings rate was a negative one percent. Consumers spent more than they earned by taking on debt or dipping into savings to make purchases. In the second quarter of 2008, however, for the first time in years the personal savings rate jumped three percent. Maybe the financial turmoil is having a positive effect.

Reuse. Several years ago, I asked Dad to tell me stories about life in Nebraska where we lived until I was five years old. At one point in the storytelling, he mentioned that the Sunday school building in Grand Island is 31 feet wide.

“Why the odd width?” I asked.

“That was the size of the roof trusses we were given.” Dad salvaged building materials for an addition to the church.

In the 1980s, Judi and I bought a fire-damaged house “as is,” and Dad helped us rebuild. He took inventory of what we needed one day and came with a trailer of salvaged supplies the next. That saved us a lot of money. Recently Judi went to a children’s consignment store to get used toys in anticipation of our youngest grandson’s visit. Our children resisted trips to Goodwill when they were in high school, but now understand the financial benefit of reuse.

Recycle. Mom and Dad couldn’t define the term ecosystem, but they demonstrated it for years. Carrot tops from the garden fed the rabbits. Rabbit “tea” fertilized the rose bushes beside the front walkway. Lumber scraps became firewood to heat the house. My parents didn’t have garbage service for years because they managed to recycle almost everything.

In contrast, less than half of the families on our street set out the green recycling bins each week. Many, however, do max out the six-bag limit with garbage. That’s a lot of financial resources headed for the landfill.

We sometimes teased Mom when she kept the new dishcloth in the drawer and continued using the old one—she had sewn two dishcloths together, shifting one so its holes were covered by the other. We rolled our eyes when we saw the collection of empty butter tubs in the basement with the lids in an oatmeal container next to the stack. But we would smile with contentment when Mom carried one of those butter tubs with her when she came to visit, grateful for the strawberry jam it contained.

Originally published by Pensions & Benefits USA.