A tribute to the guy who taught me all about “family money”

George Van House obit

My dad, George Van House, died in September, just days after my last post about our family doing a “frugal month” challenge. I was devastated. He was my last living parent, and the person who really taught me everything I know–and value–about family money.

We continued to have a pretty frugal September after his death, but there were a few extra grocery purchases and eating-out fests with family. Plus, I just didn’t have the energy to cook that month. But you know, that’s OK. Everything changes when someone dies. It should.

I’ve had lots of time to reflect on my dad these past few months. And I wanted to put down in “ink” some of what he taught me about family money. So here goes. If you follow me, you’re a trooper. If not, this one’s for Dad.My dad was a frugal guy, a kid of the Depression. Grew up in a rural part of Nebraska. Said Christmas was all about a big meal and getting a piece of fruit and candy in his holiday stocking. He loosened up a bit as he got older, but he never squandered money. He was a faithful subscriber to Consumer Reports. He read grocery ads and clipped coupons when my mom was too busy. He researched pretty much every purchase he ever made.

After my dad retired, he did taxes part-time. He also golfed with some folks who were more well-heeled than our family. From them, he started to learn about investing. I admired that about him: That he never stopped learning, that he always listened to people who were doing things differently to see if there was anything he could borrow from their wisdom.

And yes, my dad did have chats with me about money. But more than anything, I remember what he DID about money. I learned more from his examples than from his words:

He had a budget. He never explained it to me, but I often saw my dad entering figures onto green ledger paper. (This was in the days before computers). Dad always used a mechanical pencil (the kind with lead you twist down) so his point would always be sharp. One time I looked over his shoulder (he wasn’t into sharing his financial details, so I had to be quick!) and saw that he was putting things into categories on his ledger paper: Mortgage, Groceries, Restaurants. That sort of thing.

When I graduated from college and had a very tiny salary to manage, the first thing that occurred to me was to buy ledger paper and sort my sorry little dollars into categories so I knew I had enough to cover essentials. It wasn’t really even a conscious choice. It just seemed like the natural thing to do. Someday, I trust that my daughters will adopt some of my financial habits just from watching me (though they hear me talk about it, too, and are wildly bored right now!)

He comparison-shopped. Again, not something Dad ever really talked about. But I saw him look at the grocery store circulars each week and make a little list of what to buy (on sale) at two or three different stores. He was able to match the sales to coupons like no one I’ve ever seen! Me, I just use TheGroceryGame. They do the sale-and-coupon matching for me. But I definitely learned the concept from my dad.

He researched big purchases. Consumer Reports was his purchasing Bible. Not only did he want to buy things at a good price, he wanted them to LAST. I admit: I’m a CR subscriber, too. It just feels wrong to buy something moderately expensive without checking out the reviews first.

He avoided debt. And he tried to get me to do the same, though I didn’t always listen. I begged to open a credit card account in late high school. Dad spent many hours explaining to me how easy it was to run up a balance and pay unnecessary interest. I insisted that I needed to build my credit history. Dad eventually gave in and cosigned my credit card application.

I actually did fine with credit until my last year of college. By then, I was tired of living on the edge, with money only for essentials and perhaps one pizza a month. I’ll never forget the day I bought on my credit card a much-envied pair of black jeans from the Gap–$30 that I absolutely couldn’t afford to part with. I didn’t pay off that credit card bill right away, and the interest dinged me for MONTHS. I was too ashamed to tell my dad that he was right. But he was.

He let me make financial mistakes–after fair warning. Such as my credit card dilemma, above. An even bigger mistake: He let me buy a car I couldn’t afford, right before my senior year of college. It was much too expensive for someone with a less-than-part-time income. A slightly used Honda Prelude for $7500! That’s even a lot for a college student today. I actually wish he had talked me out of it. Not only did the payments sometimes overwhelm me ($150 a month for seemingly forever), I hadn’t anticipated repair costs. Nor did I know much about preventative maintenance for cars. A bad combo all around. I had some very stressful moments my last year of college, trying to negotiate repair costs with an auto shop. But I’m grateful he let me try my wings a little. Better to make mistakes early in life than later, when the stakes are bigger.

He was my family banker. Dad financed the purchase of my Prelude–I paid him back instead of a bank. He later did the same when my husband and I bought another car. But he was all business about it: He insisted on using a contract and charging interest. Terms were explicitly spelled out: The payment due date, the charge for paying late, etc. At the end of my loan term, my dad gave me back my final payment as a gift–a lovely surprise! He did the same for my husband and me on our later car. And we paid him faithfully: I would have rather paid another creditor late than disappoint my banker-dad!

He invested regularly but conservatively. Dad learned about bonds from his retired golf buddies. He liked them all: Local municipal bonds, government bonds and bond mutual funds. He wasn’t interested in investing in anything flashy. And to be fair, he didn’t start investing until later in life, so bonds were a good choice. He knew he probably didn’t have 30 or 40 years to watch his investments rise and fall. He wanted them to plod along, earning conservative amounts of consistent income.

For this one trait, I thank my lucky stars. When I took over my dad’s financial affairs after he developed dementia, I didn’t have to touch his investment choices. I just watched over them. And when the market crashed in 2008-09, Dad’s investments remained virtually unscathed. That gave me great peace of mind.

Finally, he was a giver. As frugal as he was, my dad (and my mom when she was alive) felt strongly about philanthropy. He always gave money to favorite causes, from his church to the Parkinson’s Disease Association to families he knew were going through some hardship. I see now that he really got as much out of those donations as he gave. He earned a great feeling of being useful, being part of his community, being grateful for what he had in life. I hope to be able to do the same.

For all you’ve taught me, Dad, I thank you. Life won’t be the same without you.

September: Our Savings Month

Our family is on a “no-nonessential spending kick” for September. Why? We had a few hangover bills from a summer vacation and three unexpected car repairs. So a spending freeze seemed like a sane way to get our budget back on track.

Now, we’re pretty careful with our money anyway, so I thought, “How hard can this be?” Well, it’s only September 2. And I’ll tell ya the truth: It’s very, very hard!

I read a suggestion in financial celebrity Suze Orman’s 2009 Action Plan (which I downloaded for free; you can still read the first chapter here). It was: Don’t spend ANYTHING for one day. So during the last part of August, I kept trying to do that, in preparation for September. Emphasis on “kept trying.” I’d think: OK, this is an easy day to spend nothing. Then we desperately needed milk. Or it was my “mom’s night out” and I wanted to buy a cup of coffee with a friend. Or I needed to send in a check for my daughters’ lunch money.

So I’d put off the “spend nothing day” until tomorrow. But the funny thing was that something kept popping up—sometimes a need, sometimes a very strong “want”—and I found it really tough to go even one single day without spending at least a few bucks! I wondered: How the heck are we going to get through September?

Welcome Home: A happy byproduct of the recession

Do tight economic times have you spending more time at home with your kids? If so, you’re not alone. And it can be a good thing. Check out this article: Tough times mean family time at home.

My question: Will we keep this up even after the recessions passes? I hope so.

Save money by growing your groceries

Our project for this summer: Start a vegetable garden. Not only do we hope to save money on produce, I think it will be fun, too!

We’re planning to install two 4′ x 4′ raised garden boxes on the narrow south side of our house. One will be a “salad garden” with arugula, lettuce and other greens. The second will be an “Italian garden” with basil, parsley, tomatoes and the like.

I’ve been wondering, though, how we’d know if we’re really saving money by growing our own veggies.Then I came upon this cool savings calculator that  helps you figure out how much you save by planting your own vegetable garden. Perfect! Now I’m off to the nursery to buy basil and blueberry bushes and tomatoes….

Pets with purpose: Chickens

One of my all-time favorite money-saving family projects of the past year is our cute backyard chickens. Ok, ok, we also wanted some outdoor pets, since my hubby is allergic to the standard indoor stuff (cats, dogs, rabbits, gerbils, etc.). But seriously, now that organic, free-range eggs are getting so spendy, our girls are definitely earning their keep!

Each of our girls lays an egg a day–fewer during the shorter days of winter. If you’ve never had a really fresh egg, it’s a real treat. The yolks are so rich they’re almost orange. And they come from very happy, doted-upon chickens.

You don’t need to have a farm to have chickens. We’re in a typical, urban neighborhood (50 x 100 lot) and we can have ‘em. In fact, two other neighbors within 5 blocks have chickens. As someone said (I forget who), “chickens are the new pug”!

This cracked me up–Manhattanites with chickens. But we actually kept ours (these folks gave up on having a coop in their co-op). And our girls seem to be putting up with us pretty well.

Recession fallout: Save like crazy or take advantage of sales?

Know what I mean? On one hand, I feel like I want to have an even larger emergency fund than usual and get really frugal with my spending. On the other hand…this is a great time to get a bargain on a car, do home improvements (since builders and other workers are anxious for business), invest in our retirement funds while prices are low, and so on!

It’s driving my consumer brain crazy! Anyone else?

Living (happily!) with less

Couldn’t resist sharing this great essay on living simply from The Christian Science Monitor. It’s by my friend and freelance writing colleague Kris Bordessa. She and her family lived in Hawaii for three years and happily embraced the easy-going, less materialistic culture they found in the islands. They’ve just returned to what many of us consider the altar of materialism: California. Read it here.

I’m kind of intrigued by a simple living advocate she mentions: Dave Bruno created something called the 100 Thing Challenge. His goal is to cut his possession back to just 100 items by the end of the year. Could you do it?

Frugal is cool again

Any of you remember the voluntary simplicity movement that was HUGE maybe 10 years ago? Well, it’s coming back. All this doom-and-gloom recession news apparently has people thinking twice about their spending habits. While I’m not happy about the economic news, I’m sort of happy that folks have an opportunity to really consider their money choices carefully. I know I am.

I love the title of this article– “Is Frugal the New Black?” Read it here.

And I appreciate this writer’s ability to see the “silver lining” in the economic slowdown: “10 reasons to love a recession.”

Cheaper lunch meat

My family goes through a lot of sandwich fixings. The kids eat sandwiches almost every day, as does my hubby. But buying the meat gets spendy!

I don’t love the packaged, thin-sliced meats filled with sodium, though they’re cheap. And the sliced deli meat is close to $6 a pound right now–too expensive for every day. So I was thrilled to read a great tip in this interesting book. You can also more read about The Economides family and their frugal living ideas at their Web site.