Learning to wait...

Have you ever decided you needed something, then zoomed to your neighborhood store in its pursuit? Perhaps you favor online shopping for convenience.  How many of these items do you use daily or weekly? Are they wants or actual needs?

To my mind, groceries are a need and must be replenished regularly. With planning, preparing food at home that can be frozen for later use and cold storage, there is not the urgency to visit the butcher, greengrocer or bakery daily. Many of us had grandparents who grew up distant from towns and only went in weekly. That meant they were likely eating what they grew or made themselves and the ability to can at home was prized. They also did not have televisions, radios or computers loaded with ads telling them what they should have for a good life.

Admittedly, our western existence has changed markedly, and along with it the ability to discern what we want from what we actually need on a given day. So acclimated have we become to simply using credit for online or in-store purchases that if statistics are to be believed, we have become a nation rolling in consumer debt. We also appear to keep bankruptcy courts very busy.

While you might equate this with an individual's inability to manage money, there is more to the scenario, including the fact that very few of us are taught the rudiments of budgeting, understanding credit or living with what we have. My eighth grade Consumer Math class did attempt some of this teaching but I've yet to meet a thirteen year-old with a good grasp of the cost of revolving credit or compounding interest. If the parents are deficient in this information or don't provide a kid a reasonable allowance with which to make some purchases of their own and thus decide what to spend, what to save and what to donate to a favorite charity or cause, the kid will not learn easily, and indoctrinated with a consumerist mindset, may never quash impulse spending or prioritize what is spent or saved.

My allowance from ten onward was one dollar per week at home with permission to look after younger neighborhood children whose parents were out, starting at age fourteen. This paid fifty percent more than the parents did for daily chores around the house. As I was polite and responsible, most people gave me a bit more as a thank you. Since my parents were not comfortable with me purchasing my own clothes or personal care items and I wasn't interested in buying a lot, my four-dollar-per-month grand total usually went in an envelope in my desk while any babysitting money was reserved for the odd movie or a day trip on a launch to a nearby island with a friend. Sometimes I would buy a bag of carrots for the horse I rode after school a couple times per week.

Sent to college with permission to buy clothing and send home the receipts for reimbursement, did I suddenly morph into a "Shop til You Drop" maven of the Mall?  Hardly. She who was born without a shopping gene preferred the racks of clothing found at the university's weekly flea market or nearby thrift stores, something which horrified my mother to the point that if she asked where a particular item of clothing came from, I'd simply do something which did not come naturally and lie. When she quit asking, our mutual relief was palpable. (To Be Continued)