Author Topic: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity  (Read 7113 times)

Rubic

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Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« on: November 24, 2016, 04:57:24 PM »
Many of us were fortunate to have been bequeathed examples of
frugality from our parents.  For example, my mother just recently
shared this detail from our childhood.  With 4 kids, buying children's
clothes was expensive.  Mom volunteered to work at a local Goodwill
store.  This gave her first dibs on all the decent children's clothes
before the doors opened.  Mom would purchase winter coats for
less than a $1.  She once picked up a tricycle for $3 which Dad
then repainted for my Christmas present.

I was aware they were frugal when we were growing up, but I didn't
realize they were also creative.

Metric Mouse

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #1 on: November 24, 2016, 07:11:58 PM »
My mother grew up in a house with a dirt floor. A dirt fucking floor. Ti see what she has now, starting from that, is pretty badass.

mustachepungoeshere

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #2 on: November 24, 2016, 07:30:15 PM »
When my mum was a little girl, she and her sister wanted to make gingerbread men but my grandmother didn't have a cookie cutter, so my grandfather used tin snips and pliers to make them one out of a can.

The best bit of the story is that he is now 85 and still kicking.

guitarman4

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #3 on: November 24, 2016, 11:08:32 PM »
Many of us were fortunate to have been bequeathed examples of
frugality from our parents.  For example, my mother just recently
shared this detail from our childhood.  With 4 kids, buying children's
clothes was expensive.  Mom volunteered to work at a local Goodwill
store.  This gave her first dibs on all the decent children's clothes
before the doors opened.  Mom would purchase winter coats for
less than a $1.  She once picked up a tricycle for $3 which Dad
then repainted for my Christmas present.

I was aware they were frugal when we were growing up, but I didn't
realize they were also creative.
My mom and dad divorced when I was 5 and left my mom broke and on welfare and food stamps. She was never a great teacher about money but she lead by example.  She was raising 3 kids all by herself. She started an art business and actually became a multi millionaire. She lead by example and was extremely frugal. She would hand dry everything. She would also cook chicken 365 days a year because it was cheap. She never ever had any debt period. Zero credit cards and never ever a car payment. She always drove $300 cars. She was a great leader by example. I am very thankful that I had her.

HenryDavid

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #4 on: November 25, 2016, 08:04:57 AM »
Low income, and with 4 kids, my parents insisted on summer vacation trips each year. They made it work by camping in a tent trailer and cooking everything at campsites. Lunches from a cooler at picnic spots.
But the most badass memory that springs to mind just now is watching my father and grandfather swap out the universal joint on our old Chevy which was parked over a ditch at a campground in  . . . Vermont? I dunno. I assumed this is just what parents did. (My father kept cars forever by repairing the shit out of them in our driveway at home, doing his own oil changes and tune-ups, bodywork, all that stuff. My whole childhood we had the same '66 Bel Air.)
Anyway thanks to what we now call "hacks" like self-built roof boxes for the car, picnicking and general thrift and self-reliance, we had 2-3 week road trips every year for 10 years and saw much of the eastern US and most of southern Canada. Educational in every way, and memorable.
Of course they thought this was all nothing special--just living life.

NV Teacher

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #5 on: November 25, 2016, 08:16:23 PM »
My mother became a widow at 54.  She still had four kids in school and four out on their own.  She took on three jobs, lunch lady at the local elementary school, clerk at a gas station, and book keeper for the local water company.  She also kept the farm running.  We raised alfalfa and had a herd of sheep.  Years later she told me that at times she would go for months without a day off.  My mother is a badass.

Abe

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #6 on: November 25, 2016, 09:32:43 PM »
my parents left their home country as refugees, came to the US with $70 after bouncing around various countries for three years and landing a job paying $4/hr. We ended up in a town full of anti-immigrant bigots, but they toughed through it and are now finally semi-retiring as multi-millionaires (full retirement sounded too boring to them). 

Gerard

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #7 on: November 25, 2016, 10:51:36 PM »
When my dad and his siblings and parents came to Canada in the early 1950s, through some complicated sponsorship-indentureship-sharecropping scheme, the "accommodation" they had been promised was a former chicken shed. Former, as in the chickens had been moved out the month before. They toughed it out for nearly three years, until they had the money for a down payment on their own farm.

My mom crossed the north Atlantic from England to Canada in March on the Queen Mary. Deck passage. As in, outside.

By the time they had us, they had worked up to a comfortable white-collar working-class life. No dramatic specific hacks from my childhood, just getting 'er done day after day, with a big vegetable garden and home-sewn clothes  and cheap camping vacations. They kicked ass.

misshathaway

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #8 on: November 26, 2016, 02:04:33 AM »
I grew up in an age of parenting when the answer to "why" questions was usually "Because I said so". But I do remember one discussion I had with my mother about name brands. I wanted "Herbal Essence" shampoo, which, of course, she would never buy. She explained that all shampoo contains essentially the same ingredients and that there was nothing inherently better about Herbal Essence. You were just paying for the name. She extended this to all name brands.

At the time, I found it infuriating. Later in life I would come back to these teaching moments.

It is badass to not give in to kids' whims and deal with the fallout over and over again, for the good of the family.

Dicey

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #9 on: November 26, 2016, 04:21:02 AM »
My mom crossed the north Atlantic from England to Canada in March on the Queen Mary. Deck passage. As in, outside.
Before I chime in with my story, I just gotta stop and give props to your badass mum. Last July, we had a family reunion aboard the Queen Mary, now permanently docked at Long Beach Harbor in CA. Having been there so recently and shivering in the cool evenings, I can't imagine what it must have been like for your mother. Wow, badass indeed!

BTW, we had a homemade box that we hoisted atop our (used) Chevy Kingswood station wagon for road trips, too. My job was to do the packing. The better I could stow everyone else's crap, the more of my own I could bring. I still have badass packing and spacial planning skillz as a result. Plus, I loved standing in the box on top of that boat of a car,, I was the King of the World up there.

Okay, back on topic-ish. It's 1967. My parents had 5 kids and another on the way. We were busting out of our very small 3BR house. Dad found a deal on a brand new 5BR house that had fallen out of escrow several times. There was a real estate slump on and the builder wanted to dump it for just 21k. My parents borrowed $3k from my grandpa and we moved Two Weeks before #6 was born!  If you're not paying close enough attention, let me rephrase that: My mother was eight and a half months pregnant when she packed up the house and moved with her five other children, mostly by herself, because my dad was at wotk.

Our new house was bare-bones. Linoleum tiles everywhere, no carpet. No A/C (We lived in Riverside, CA, which is fucking hot in the summertime), no landscaping. Within a couple of months, all of us came down with mumps and we experienced a record-breaking heat wave. There is a tiny black and white photo of five of us in the dirt backyard, in our bathing suits, with hugely swollen faces. I think it was slightly cooler outside (thanks to a garden hose) and my mother was probably trying to keep us away from the newborn baby. How she kept her sanity and didn't kill any or all of us I'll never know.

The old house hadn't sold yet, so they were making double mortgage payments. Dad was a federal employee, getting paid once a month. Mom was an RN, but became a SAHM when the eldest was born (me). One night, toward the end of the month, we were out of milk. My parents were scrounging for enough change to make a small dairy run. Mom was standing at the closet, going through her clothing. Suddenly, she shrieked with delight when she pulled a folded-up $20 bill from the pocket of her winter coat. I vividly remember their laughter and my dad waltzing her over the linoleum tiles of their bedroom! Their relief was palpable to my nine-year-old self.

Eventually the original house sold, grandpa was paid back, and we all survived that horrible first summer. When #6 started grade school, mom went back into nursing and they were never again quite so broke.

Oh, and the origin of the $20 bill? My mom always thought her mother must have slipped it into her coat pocket the year before when she visited all the way from Chicago. Mom knew there was no way she had ever forgotten a folded $20 in her coat pocket.

I learned a lot of good frugal lessons that summer.

gj83

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #10 on: November 26, 2016, 11:39:54 AM »
My dad always had a good job, but we never bought new furniture or cars.  All of our furniture was handed down from my grandpa (and all of my bedroom furniture is still handed down from him).  His company would sell the former company cars when they got to around 100-150k miles so most of our cars where purchased from them.  I never drove a car with less than 100k miles until I purchased my own.
We rarely had birthday parties as kids.  I think I had maybe one or two.
Dad would usually buy nice gadgets, but never the first generation.  Usually around the time the third generation was about to be released we would get the second generation since they were usually more stable than the first and were discounted anticipating the third.
My mom would make clothes.  She still offers to fix buttons for me.  I've mastered buttons, but I was never good with a sewing machine so anything that requires a sewing machine or serger I save up and have her fix.  She fixed a couple zippers for me last time I visited.
Judging by some friends and ex boyfriends I think 1) not buying new furniture 2) not buying new cars all the time and 3) not buying the bleeding edge of everything has made the biggest impression.

Also, my dad always put everything on the AMEX and we would use the points for stuff.  I have a great credit score thanks to my dad adding my as an AU as a kid and teaching me how to not screw it up after that.


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gReed Smith

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #11 on: November 28, 2016, 02:46:11 PM »
My family was not poor, but I remember getting handed down furniture from my grandparents after we lived in a house with unfurnished rooms for 7 years.  I was the youngest kid, and I did not have an article of brand new clothing until I was 11, and even then they were few and far between.  They did buy brand new cars, but drove them for 15 years.  My mom grew veggies and canned them for winter.

But none of this was done to be frugal that I know of.  It was just the culture in Appalachia.  Sure, dad made 6 figures, but who buys new clothes for their kid when there are plenty of hand-me-downs?

TightFistedScot

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #12 on: December 01, 2016, 06:46:19 AM »
I'm lucky to have had exposure to all kinds of experiences with wealth through interacting with both my paternal and maternal sides of my family. My father is from a relatively wealthy family on his father's side, but his mother grew up dirt poor. So even though they had money, he told me he remembers eating out once or twice his entire life until he left the house. He very much has working class values.

My mother is from a working class background and so all of her siblings mostly maintained that life. It's been interesting to observe (at least within my very large extended families) the cultural differences between working class and upper middle class, broadly speaking.

Anyway, both my parents are quite frugal and money conscious - and I inherited that value system. Even though they could afford new cars often, they would keep their car (which later became 2 cars) for 10 years or more. Their second car was purchased off another family member and already. My dad walked to work until he was about 40 or so.

I actually do not really agree with this negative-enforcement parenting style, but my father was very strict about things we did that inflated the cost of running the house. So for example, if we forgot to turn a light off in a room, if we left the exterior door open in the winter, or if we left the heat up in our downstairs tv room, we would lose a portion of our allowance. There were times we got no allowance at all (which was already a conservative amount in comparison to my peers). Let's just say I am EXTREMELY vigilant about turning off lights now. LOL

My dad retired at 54, sold his business, and he and my mother own a few rental houses, a small apartment building, and a commercial building. In my teens when I was around they would hire me to do small jobs in the rental houses like tearing up carpet, taking down wallpaper, lawn mowing, etc.

I learned a lot from my parents in this regard! My dad is often my go-to person about investing because he has done well in the stock market.
     

Toffeemama

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #13 on: December 01, 2016, 07:43:15 AM »
Is it possible to be badass but still stupid with money?  Because my parents are both.  My dad(stepdad, but he's more of a father to me than my bio dad ever was) joined the Army when I was 8.  Partly to get us away from toxic bio-dad, but partly for the free insurance and housing.  He was deployed to the Middle East for a large chunk of my teenage years.  He was forced to retire a few years ago due to physical ailments, and started work as a truck driver.  He drove trucks for a while, until a school bus crashed into him.  Now he's trying to get workers comp to pay out what he's owed, so he can purchase a property or two to manage as a retirement project.

My mother took in foster children.  Not for the money, although we wouldn't have been able to afford housing them without the money.  Often, my dad was deployed, so she was basically a single mother to all of us.  Many of her foster children still keep in touch, and some even call her Mom.  One was adopted right before she turned 18, so now she's my sister.

They've got timeshares and car payments, but they're still the most badass people I know.

AM43

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #14 on: December 01, 2016, 08:50:37 AM »
My parents left their home country with few thousand dollars in their pocket.
Biggest barrier and adjustment was not speaking or understanding language, cultural differences, not being accepted as equal etc.
After working hard, being very frugal and  learning about investments they made themselves millionaires and happily retired to Florida.  If this is not  BADASS, I don't know what is then.

mustachepungoeshere

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #15 on: December 01, 2016, 06:02:57 PM »
Is it possible to be badass but still stupid with money?  Because my parents are both.  My dad(stepdad, but he's more of a father to me than my bio dad ever was) joined the Army when I was 8.  Partly to get us away from toxic bio-dad, but partly for the free insurance and housing.  He was deployed to the Middle East for a large chunk of my teenage years.  He was forced to retire a few years ago due to physical ailments, and started work as a truck driver.  He drove trucks for a while, until a school bus crashed into him.  Now he's trying to get workers comp to pay out what he's owed, so he can purchase a property or two to manage as a retirement project.

My mother took in foster children.  Not for the money, although we wouldn't have been able to afford housing them without the money.  Often, my dad was deployed, so she was basically a single mother to all of us.  Many of her foster children still keep in touch, and some even call her Mom.  One was adopted right before she turned 18, so now she's my sister.

They've got timeshares and car payments, but they're still the most badass people I know.

Definitely badarse!

hdatontodo

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #16 on: December 01, 2016, 07:20:33 PM »
I grew up in MD with 4 siblings in the 1960's. My mother cooked every day and we never ate out. We never took vacations either, except to stay at my grandfather's summer cottage that he built by hand from cinderblock. If we went to the zoo or a park, we always packed sandwiches and never ate out.

Once, someone gave my mom coupons for McD's combo's (hamburger, fries, coke.) At the register, they rang up our order and said the total for all of us was $6. My mom said, I don't have that much money. Remember my coupons?

We did manage to go to private Catholic school with just my dad working as a distribution/warehouse manager for American Automobile Association. When we started college in the 1970's, U of Md was about $500 per semester and the parents paid 1/2.

My dad did envelope budgeting for gas, groceries, etc. I remember we could get six bags of groceries for around $35.

TightFistedScot

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #17 on: December 02, 2016, 06:41:22 AM »
Is it possible to be badass but still stupid with money?  Because my parents are both.  My dad(stepdad, but he's more of a father to me than my bio dad ever was) joined the Army when I was 8.  Partly to get us away from toxic bio-dad, but partly for the free insurance and housing.  He was deployed to the Middle East for a large chunk of my teenage years.  He was forced to retire a few years ago due to physical ailments, and started work as a truck driver.  He drove trucks for a while, until a school bus crashed into him.  Now he's trying to get workers comp to pay out what he's owed, so he can purchase a property or two to manage as a retirement project.

My mother took in foster children.  Not for the money, although we wouldn't have been able to afford housing them without the money.  Often, my dad was deployed, so she was basically a single mother to all of us.  Many of her foster children still keep in touch, and some even call her Mom.  One was adopted right before she turned 18, so now she's my sister.

They've got timeshares and car payments, but they're still the most badass people I know.

Most of my friends are philanthropist types but not exactly frugal! There's all kinds of ways to be badass!

mustachepungoeshere

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #18 on: December 03, 2016, 02:21:43 AM »
Once, someone gave my mom coupons for McD's combo's (hamburger, fries, coke.) At the register, they rang up our order and said the total for all of us was $6. My mom said, I don't have that much money. Remember my coupons?

What happened?

CU Tiger

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #19 on: December 05, 2016, 09:39:14 PM »
We heated our house with a wood stove until I was a college grad. My Dad didn't pay for wood either, he let everyone in the neighborhood, and at work, know that if they had trees that needed to be removed, to call him.

He was a total badass. He spent many weekends and evenings taking two whiny little girls out in his pickup truck to cut wood and bring it back home to split and stack. We carried wood, loaded wood, and stacked wood for hours, complaining and bitching about the cold, and bugs, and how we wanted to go insiiiiiiiiide. "Work a little harder, that will warm you up," he'd say. And he just kept going and made us do the same. And our house was warm and our backyard looked like a wood lot. And even though I was one of the whiners and complainers right up through high school, looking back, he taught me some invaluable lessons about hard work, making do, and doing worthwhile things that are not fun.

We did not have a/c until I was in college, or maybe after I graduated. We used an attic fan and ceiling fans - and this is in SC, where it gets hot and humid.

Aki

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #20 on: December 06, 2016, 04:58:50 PM »
My mom came to America on a boat from Greece when she was 11, along with her 4 sisters and mom, and didn't know any English.  Her mom cleaned bars and would take my mom with her in the early morning hours, before school, to help her.  My mom saved her money to eventually buy her own car.  My mom's mom died when my mom was 16 years old.  My mom is now 71 years old and has been taking care of my dad ever since 1980, when a woman crossed the center line and smashed into my dad's car; he ended up (at 40 years old) with severe closed head injuries that left him with no short-term memory and unable to work or drive.  At the time of the car accident, I was 10 years old and the oldest of 4 kids.  Mom took care of my dad, waitressed, and put us through college (we also worked).  I'm so incredibly fortunate and grateful to have such a great mom.         

One Noisy Cat

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #21 on: December 09, 2016, 12:37:32 PM »
One of my earliest memories is my mother circa 1960 using her green stamps to buy a men's barber kit. Green stamps were given out by supermarkets for purchases,get enough pasted in a book and you would exchange them for certain items. She cut me and my brother's hair for years until I was in high school and persuaded her to take me to a barber to handle longer hair (I used to get it cut twice a year). She cut Dad's hair (what little he had) for decades.

paddedhat

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #22 on: December 15, 2016, 06:44:46 AM »
My step dad was of the opinion that you buy new cars. It actually made sense back in the  sixties and seventies. He was in a union job, so buying American was a must, and the were, at the time, basically shit. As in, if you got 100k out of a 6-7 year old car, before it was "worn out", the neighbors were impressed. So there we are, me as a bored elementary school brat, for some reason driving to an endless number of car dealerships, only to watch my dad have a quick conversation with a salesman, then walk away as the guy shook his head. One day, dad struck his gold. He found a new two door Oldsmobile with exactly zero options. It was rust colored, inside and out, and couldn't get any more basic. No power windows, locks, steering, or transmission. It had a horrible AM radio, and I think the only reason it did was that GM didn't want to ship the car with a hole in the dash.  I later discovered that it was a bitch to drive, and understood why my mom hated the thing with a passion. It had a very small steering wheel, which typically was NBD, since Detroit iron of the day came with grossly over-assisted, vague, squirrely steering. Except this one, DIDN'T come with power steering, would of been tough to drive with a giant tractor trailer wheel, and was nearly impossible for my mom to maneuver, especially while trying to parallel park. I remember my petite mom  just about standing on the floor, with two hands, overhand, on top of the wheel, as she fought to get the thing to the curb, in tight downtown spots.

 It also had a three speed manual trans. with a column shifter. Now a column shifter is nothing but an irritating PITA when it works, but GM took it to the next level by making ones that only really worked for the first few years, then they had to be handled with excruciating precision and extremely light touch, or they would jamb in neutral, when shifting from first to second. Now dad was not the kind of guy who would actually take the thing into a garage to correct a problem like this. Noooo, if it got jammed, it was obviously the driver's fault, which should be read as either my mom, or myself, since dad didn't shift it "incorrectly". ( to put this in perspective, when I watch the Christmas story movie, when the kid freezes his tongue to the flag pole, the dad in the movie is so much like my pop, it kind of freaks me out) I quickly learned to pop the hood and realign the shift rods to correct the problem, without getting dad involved. Mom had to (on more than one occasion) walk to a pay phone, or find some man with a clue, to get the piece of crap untangled.

Since dad was one heck of a mustachian, he always drove vehicles until they had nothing left to give. At then end, other drivers in the family were always better off avoiding these heaps, since they had a habit of failing, and much like musical chairs, if they broke while you were at wheel, the music stops, and you are it. Dad's first response to a problem was, "what the hell did you do now!".  In the end I got blamed for killing this beast. I went to start it and it just wouldn't start. I pushed it down the street to another dad on the block, who was just as cheap and grumpy, but was a mechanic. He  popped the hood up, and pulled the air cleaner off. He then sealed the top of the carb. with his hand and told me to crank the starter. In a minute he said, "The engine is too weak to even suck any fuel in, tell your cheap father that it's over". Twelve years and 155K miles of service from a 1971 GM product made it a true outlier, but dad still wasn't pleased to hear the news.

I'll miss my step dad for as long as I live, and alway be awed by somebody who was thrifty his entire life, and didn't give a rat's ass about what the Jones were up to.

Pigeon

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #23 on: December 15, 2016, 08:41:10 AM »
My dad and my uncle built the house I grew up in  and my uncle's house with their own hands.  They didn't hire out anything except to bring in concrete for the foundations.  It was right after WWII, with a terrible housing shortage.  They were both newlyweds right out of college (engineers) with babies on the way.

Growing up, I can't think of a single time we hired anybody to do anything house-related.  Dad did it all.

Hedge_87

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #24 on: December 16, 2016, 12:07:47 PM »
My dad and my uncle built the house I grew up in  and my uncle's house with their own hands.  They didn't hire out anything except to bring in concrete for the foundations.  It was right after WWII, with a terrible housing shortage.  They were both newlyweds right out of college (engineers) with babies on the way.

Growing up, I can't think of a single time we hired anybody to do anything house-related.  Dad did it all.

My parents didn't build their house but completely renovated an old farm house. Dad (with the help of my uncles and grandpa) tore down and moved walls installed all the electrical, HVAC system, and plumbing. The only thing he "hired out" was to have a buddy who owned a drywall company come in and mud and tape all the new sheet rock in exchange for a case of beer. This guy was GOOD at it and was done with the whole house in a couple evenings. I was about 9 years old at the time and wish I would have been a little older to help out and learn a little more than I did.

They just turned 50 this year and In pretty good financial shape (no debt and plenty saved in retirement accounts) I am trying to discretely plant the seed in their heads that they really don't need to work anymore if they don't want too. I know dad will receive a great pension at the age of 62 but that is still about 11 years away.

BuzzardsBay

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #25 on: December 19, 2016, 10:58:57 AM »
My Dad passed away when I was 6 years old.  My Mother raised me by herself, worked, saved, paid off the mortgage early, and taught me by example the value of a dollar and the importance of savings.  She still lives in the beautiful home I grew up in that she and my Dad had built when I was 2.  She has never borrowed money except for the mortgage and she always took great care of me.  She's awesome.

Mezzie

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Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #26 on: December 24, 2016, 12:46:07 AM »
My parents gave us all allowances (which we could increase by doing extras like babysitting), and that early exposure to money management taught me how to save. They were amazing at cutting grocery costs for our family of six, giving us memorable experiences on a tight budget (camping, museums, weekly library trips...), and just being FUN. I learned to associate happiness, fun, and satisfaction with experiences rather than stuff, and I am incredibly grateful for that.

They didn't always make the best financial decisions, but I learned from those, too (especially in the form of an aversion to debt).

I learned about hard work, loving learning, delayed gratification, helping others even if it means sacrifice, and integrity.

They're seriously badass. I love them. :)


DFJD

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
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    • DebtFreeJD
Re: Share a Story of your Parent's Badassity
« Reply #27 on: December 24, 2016, 06:18:40 AM »
My dad was frugal his whole life.  He left home at 18, and supported himself (and later my mom and us kids and HIS mother) on what was never more than a middle-class salary.  I remember him going to four different grocery stores to get chicken that was below $1.50 lb when he was in his 60s.  He never bought a new car, and for 80% of his life drove ancient Volvos without air conditioning.  I have vivid childhood memories of sitting in one of those cars in horrible traffic on the helix to the Lincoln Tunnel, in July, in 90 degree weather, and him turning on the HEAT full blast to keep the car from overheating.  (That happened a lot).

He also distrusted the stock market. 

He died recently.  We discovered after his death that he had left about a million dollars behind for my mother.  Sitting in the bank, in cash. 
« Last Edit: December 24, 2016, 07:41:03 AM by DFJD »