"Thrift is a virtue,"

as my grandmother used to say. 

My paternal grandmother lived in a time and place where just about all ordinary people seemed to believe this. People were generally thrifty, not always out of need, but according to the belief that being prudent with your resources was the wise and right thing to do. Although she raised a family during the Great Depression, I suspect her thoughts on thrift were formed in her childhood in the early 1900s, as my great grandparents were known to be thrifty.

My grandmother had all sorts of lessons on thrift to teach us young kids. But she always tempered economizing with a few (very) moderate extravagances. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my sister and grandmother when an ice cream truck drove past. Us girls became excited to hear the little tune of the truck. My grandmother asked if we liked ice cream. Well, yes! Did she need to ask? For a moment we thought she would hand us 10 to 15 cents each to buy an ice cream treat. She didn't. Instead she asked us to help hang the laundry on the line outside, and then she had a surprise for us. Okay, so no ice cream, but a surprise is always good, right?

When we all finished with the laundry, my grandmother said she needed to get a couple of things for supper at the market a few blocks away. We all walked to the store. On the same block as the market was a drugstore with an ice cream counter. Before getting the foods for supper, she took us into the drugstore and bought us each a cone of our choice. As we licked our cones she began to explain why she chose to take us there instead of buying a treat from the ice cream truck, She explained that a single cone at the drugstore costs 5 cents, whereas treats from the ice cream truck were a dime. And you had so many more choices at the drugstore. Then she asked us what we could do with the nickels that were saved? We both listed off bunches of treats that we would like. She asked us to instead of buying more treats, if we would take the "saved" nickels home and put them into our piggy banks.

My grandmother taught us that when we are careful with our spending, we are able to save money for some time when we need it. She never put it to us that she couldn't afford to spend 10 cents on the ice cream truck for each of us, but instead, finding a similar treat for less is the prudent and wise thing to do. In her words, "thrift is a virtue."

In my teen years, when I had an after school job, somehow this lesson disappeared from my mind. It seemed like I had so much spending money all of the time. It wasn't until I was living on my own that I recalled my grandmother's wise lessons on thrift. When my own kids were young and wanting things they saw at the store, in TV ads, or that other kids had, I explained that we could buy those things. However, their dad and I didn't think it was wise to buy everything the kids wanted. Instead, we chose to spend our money, wisely, on experiences or items that would be memorable for them later on. Our kids mention to this day that I always put it that we were careful with our money because we were smart, not because we were poor. Some things come full circle.