Making Life Happen

I'm not sure about you but when I think about my childhood I smile a lot. It may be the time that I decided I was a good enough skateboarder that I could negotiate the steep grade hill we lived on, and then mom spent two hours digging gravel out of my leg. Often as kids we are not dealing with a full deck. I was all of twelve years old when I was offered a job at a local restaurant where my brother already worked. Now, allow me to stipulate, technically that could be a violation of child labor laws. The truth is that I am currently 6'3" and 250 pounds and at that time I was already quickly approaching that apex, so unless I let the cat out of the proverbial bag nobody would ever know. I just remember the man I was working for, reminding me that if anyone asked, I was to tell them I was 16. I'll remind you that may be unethical, but not necessarily illegal. I was ready to live my life and that was going to require money, so whatever it took at that point seemed plausible.

Twelve may seem like a tender age to start working but I was already aware that if I was going to have any spending money for myself, I'd have to go out and work for it. I wanted to live my life and that was going to require some cash. Mom had all she could do with rubbing two pennies together and making the mortgage payment every month. In short, the old girl had made an art of barely getting us by. Raising two boys for a woman by herself was an exercise in futility but to her credit she pulled it off. And I should add, it wasn't easy.

Once I started getting some money in my pocket then I had to figure out how to be a good steward of it. Grandpa always told me if I refused to pay myself first, I'd spend the rest of my life behind the financial 8 ball, working for the man, and living paycheck to paycheck. Not only was he right, I also figured out in short order that way of life is no fun. Life and the financial responsibilities that go along with it is like trying to steer a boat in rapid water with just paddle; you usually just go in a circle. He always preached to me that I should keep $25,000 in my bank account at all times. His reasoning was because... "you never know what life is gonna throw at you." A point of fact I often discuss with my brother is how (when he was in college) he had decided to sell his 90's Chevette and use the proceeds to fly to England and see Pink Floyd in concert. It seems at the eleventh hour he changed his mind and didn't end up going but I always wonder how that trip would have turned out. The other reason I like that story is it's a reminder that I was not the only person in the family who was sometimes impetuous with my hard-earned funds.

I work with a gal named Charlie; she has a smart wit and a way with words, and she regularly teases me about being tighter than bark on a tree. She also reminds me on occasion about something I have always known but still need to remined of, "you can't take it with you." She is right of course, isn't she? But we should also be mindful of what we will leave our loved ones when we are gone. Just before my dad passed he mentioned to me that he had two life insurance policies in play. I felt good about that, but with all things that pertain to dad I should have asked a few follow up questions like, what was their value. Asking that question would have served me well because much to my chagrin each one was only worth $250. Have you ever tried to bury someone for $500? IT"S IMPOSSIBLE!! It would cost more than that just to lay Stuart Little to rest in a match box. Come to find out both grandma and grandpa each took out a life insurance policy on dad when he was born in 1946, and they had never been upgraded. One thing I can't argue is that the old man certainly left me something to remember him by. THANKS, OLD MAN!

Just remember, in all things money-wise it pays to parse what we have versus what we leave behind. Money may not buy happiness, but it CAN rent it for a while. And just a reminder, one of the Bible's most misquoted scripture is Tomothy 6:10. Many say, "Money is the root of all evil." But what it actually says is "The LOVE of money is the root of all evil." if you think about the context there is a distinct difference in those two meanings.