Poor

What Can We Learn From Grandma and Grandpa To Help Us Today?

Ever wonder why all of the old sayings that Grandma and Grandpa repeated over and over
were about money? I think they were trying to teach us something.
• A penny saved is a penny earned.
• An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
• Waste not, want not.
• Mind the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves.
• Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.
• One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
They lived in a different world with few conveniences, but they worked hard to pay for
things and stay out of debt. Why?
In their day, money was not stable. The stock market crashed. Banks were closing their
doors and leaving people with nothing. The most important thing to them was owning things
free and clear. They would rather work and save to be able to buy something outright than be
in someone else’s debt. And, that’s exactly what they did. They would save even when there
was zero interest.
They’d stuff money in their mattress, bury it in the yard at night, and hide it inside the
walls of their houses. Then, when they had enough they’d go and buy that car or horse or
tractor they needed. If they needed a home, they’d build it. If they needed food, they’d grow
it. If they wanted anything, they made sure they had enough money to pay for it. They’d find
things that other people had thrown out and they’d repair them for their own use.
Let’s compare that with today’s world. How would we change those sayings to fit this day and
age?

How Grandma’s Advice Would Read Today
• A penny saved is spent the next month.
• An pound of cure is more convenient and I don’t have time for prevention.
• Waste all, want all.
• Ignore the pennies and pretend there are dollars in the bank.
• Use it once, throw it out, get it new, and always pout.
• One man’s trash is another man’s trash.
In times past, whenever the younger generation ignored the advice of the older generation, it
usually ended up in a sad mess, and the younger generation was left wishing they had
listened. We have a lot to learn from those who came before us. Why not start with their
views on money and admit that they had it figured out. They knew what they were talking
about.
To start with, we need to spend less than we earn. Whether we have a large or a small
income, the amount of money we spend each month should be less than that. As long as we
spend less than we earn, we will always be wealthy. If we spend more than we earn, we
will always be poor.
In 1920, very few homes were mortgaged. Now, very few homes are owned free and clear.
Most homes have a mortgage these days. In fact, it’s just assumed when you buy a home
that it will be financed. Until recently, there were zero down loans. We didn’t even save for a
down payment. Now the mortgages aren’t just for 10 or 15 years, they are for 30, 40, and 50
years. There are mortgages that people wouldn’t ever be able to pay off in a lifetime.
Years ago–they would have been unheard of.
People used to make their own soap, bread, clothes, and furnishings. Now, we pay other
people to do all that. It is very rare to find anyone making anything from scratch–even meals.
Even when we cannot afford to, we pay a high price for conveniences. Nowadays, we are
hard pressed to find the makings of these things. Fabric stores have gone out of business all
over. It’s hard to find the ingredients for soap and woodworking tools are not as easy to find
as they once were.
Even though it’s hard to do, we could probably save a little money by doing more
things ourselves and sacrificing a few conveniences. Not that we have to go back to the
olden days and make our own soap, but having a mindset to simplify our lives and do more
for ourselves can add up to quite a bit of savings. For instance, do we really need 500
channels that we can’t find anything to watch on, or can we live with the basic plan?
And speaking of TV, children used to play outside and use their imaginations to invent their
own games. Now, they sit in front of television sets and play electronic games. They have
their own cell phones before they even begin middle school. Instead of passing notes in
school, they are texting each other. Our world has become very high speed, fast moving, and
gadget filled. Now, many of those gadgets are nice, but if we can’t afford them, they
aren’t making our lives any easier because we have to work harder and longer to pay
the bills each month.
So, the things our grandparents said were actually good advice. We can learn a lot from
them. We can prepare for tough times by saving money. We can put away a little at a time.
If we don’t need something, we don’t have to buy it. And, we could save money by making
more things for ourselves and only buying what we need. We could stay home and eat in
more than we go out. We could learn to do more for ourselves, like fixing our cars, cooking
home made meals, and learning new skills. We can also barter for things we need and trade
for things we have or skills we know.
We can also put away food, clothing, money, and supplies for times when we may not have
enough. We can repair things when they break instead of throwing them out. We can also
look for higher quality items at thrift stores and garage sales rather than buying overpriced
junk just because it’s new.

Ways Grandma and Grandpa’s Advice Can Help:
• Save Money
• Only Buy What We Need
• Stay Home and Eat In
• Do More For Ourselves
• Barter Goods and Services
• Grow a Garden
• Learn To Do Without
• Do Our Own Repairs and Work
• Can Our Own Food
• Sew Our Own Clothes or Repair When They Get Worn
• Save Clothes, Food, Money and Supplies for a Rainy Day
• Shop Thrift Stores and Garage Sales
• Repair Things When They Break Instead of Throwing Out
The next book will cover the emotional factors that keep people from being successful
when they try to follow this advice. We will talk about ways to pay off debt and get closer
to being debt free with the ultimate plan for debt reduction, using common banking tools and
computer programs available right now.
The first step is to get our budgets and our spending in control. Then, we can work on the
debt. By lowering our spending, it is like getting a raise. We have more income that we can
use. This gives us power to get rid of debt in an extremely quick manner, when the tools
discussed in these books are utilized in the ultimate strategy, which will be revealed later.