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Inspired Life

Last week I talked about Blue Light Specials. I would like to continue the conversation just a bit as I talk about something from childhood you might be able to relate to.

Growing up, I learned that we had to wear it out or outgrow something before we bought a new one. When I was in elementary school, I was hard on boots.

Sometimes boots were hand-me-downs that had already had some wear!

When the soles started cracking, the moisture from snow-melted, slushy puddles on the playground would seep into the boots and squish around in the woolen liners.

I wasn’t the only one whose socks left a drippy trail from the coat racks to my desk where my sneakers waited for me after recess. Can you recall the smell of wet socks in the classroom after recess?

But those boots were worn, not worn out. We couldn’t afford new boots, so my mother, like many other mothers, sent us to school with used bread bags on our feet. We’d slip them over our dry socks and then slide them into the boots. Not only were our feet dry after recess, but the slippery bread bags made it easier to put on boots that were getting just a little bit too small as well.

I learned many ways of being frugal from my mother. But I didn’t know extreme frugality until I met my mother-in-law. I’m recording this on the 15-year anniversary of when she passed away from cancer, so this is a little tribute to her.

If Joy were still living now, I think she could try out for the show “Extreme Couponing” and make it. She wouldn’t purchase anything or eat out anywhere unless she had a coupon for it. Any grocery shopping trip with her meant making at least five different stops so that she could use her coupons, get her milk card punched, or get the best price on sugar.

Her extreme frugality also included a basement full of stuff she bought simply because it was free with a rebate. She was as pale as never-seen-sunshine came, but in her basement stash, she had pantyhose for people of different shades of ethnic backgrounds. She also had foundation make-up for brown skin and boxes of L’Oreal hair color of shades she’d never use in a million years because the shelves were emptied of her favorite platinum blonde and honey brown. It didn’t matter. It was free.

I laughed when I found some test-market feminine supplies on the shelf. Those never got used because was already starting menopause, but she bought them anyway. Because they were free. Those sat right next to the packages of Depends undergarments on the shelf. I figured she was stocking up for someday because no one ever used those.

When asked about her strange collection of freebies, she’d say, “Well, you never know.”

There she was, caught in the phase between menstruating and incontinence and she had supplies for both, but needed neither.

We weren’t sure what she planned to do with the fifteen tape measures and slew of screw drivers and hammers that were free at the home improvement store. Nor the 20 packages of light bulbs that didn’t fit a single fixture in the house. But, for years, I didn’t have to buy shampoo, or lotion, or shaving cream, or toothbrushes. I just went down her basement and chose what I liked.

For us, frugality sprung out of necessity. The money simply wasn’t there to pay full price for name brand clothing or household appliances that might be used only a few times per year. It wasn’t there for my mother or my grandmother, or my mother-in-law, and it wasn’t in my bank account either. But circumstances provided us with opportunities to bond that we may not have otherwise had.

Garage sales with my sons isn’t as much about checking an item off a shopping list as it is about discovering buried treasure together and laughing about the ridiculous things we find.

We make plenty of memories in the driving around trying to find the garage sales too.