I AM A SCROUNGER*

                          [I share this essay even at the risk of being considered eccentric,

                          or having grown up in another era or country. You judge.]

All my life I have been a scrounger for bargains, free items, and cut rate prices. I got an early start when I went grocery shopping with my father, possibly even as a preschooler. He knew whether Kroger’s or Everett’s had the lowest price on sugar, even if it was only a penny difference, and the same for other items he regularly purchased. He brought home day old bread, (how many days old I don’t know) and bananas that should have been eaten several days before at the latest. We gleaned out the most edible one. He joked about feasting on those bananas: “I can recover, they can’t”, as I once heard him say quietly. He was like that with anything he bought. He had good reasons to be that way: He had come through the economic depression of the 1920’s and 30’s where they grazed cows along the road to make more land available for farming. Live hogs sold for 3 cents per pound. My mother sold eggs along residential streets house to house in town in order to get 2 cents per dozen more than we got from the egg truck that made rural pick ups. In those days a penny was worth a penny, and we understood Ben Franklin’s saying that “a penny saved is a penny earned”. Yes I was almost born a scrounger.

I remember when I was only about ten, when there was actually a 5 and 10 cent store. In fact there were several almost side by side. I would go into one of them where they had a counter with 4 sides of show window candy, each bin of candy with its own price marked on the window. I would first circle that counter as I entered, checking on the prices. On the second round of the counters, I would buy the candy, what ever kind it would be, that was reduced in price to 10 cents per pound. I rejoiced at my bargain. But later on I was fortunate to find any for even 19 cent a pound. Still I was content. But that was a lot more than we sometimes paid for candy when “Chicken Levi” would return from Chicago, or where ever he delivered chickens to, when he would return with many boxes of surplus candy, perhaps 20-30 pounds in each box, and my father bought that sweet stuff for only a dollar or so a box, And feast we did for weeks. No wonder I developed a sweet tooth, or many such teeth until they disappeared a bit prematurely. Yet I never made that connection until now. But when good stuff comes that cheap, you don’t think of everything or ask questions. You just realize you hit pay dirt, or gold.

Yes, a nickel went a long way in those days. Like for a small coke when I worked at Smokers Trailers as a youth, or a large candy bar-whoops, there is my sweet tooth showing again, for just a nickel. I remember once as I was riding along State Road 4 on my bicycle, and stopping by a big curve for some unknown reason, I found a ten dollar bill. That was so much money, I was embarrassed and afraid I might be questioned for having it. I speedily spent as much as I could immediately at the corner gas station near our home. On what? Soft drink and candy bars, or chips, I don’t remember what all. $10.00 was too much to be comfortable with in those days. Actually when I worked and enjoyed those affordable snacks in that factory, I was actually giving my father my entire check and he saved up 10% of my earnings for me for later on. I then had about $450.00 when I got married by those savings.

It was good that I appreciated the value of money when we were in voluntary service the first two years of our marriage. A thousand miles from home, we had an allowance of $10.00 per month for each of us, and then when we had a new born son, and additional $2.50 per month. Nevertheless, in those two years, I was able to purchase a gold colored self-wound watch, a reel to reel tape recorder for about $150.00, and my first 35 millimeter camera with light meter and everything. And what happened to the $450.00 in saving I had back home? It came in handy when I bought my first car for just $600.00, needing to borrow only $150.00 for it. Back in Indiana we started up with similar cut rate savings. We found a long velvety couch for just $10.00 at a sale and comparable thrift on other furniture. (My wife was not too happy with that out of style couch.) My father exemplified well the value of scrounging for the best buys. I made one mistake, however, when I bought an electric cook stove without the consent of my wife. I had to get rid of that, for a gas stove of her preference, or tolerance. I don’t remember whether it hurt to turn in the electric stove, but it was necessary to keep peace in the family. Some bargains are not cheap.

How can you attend college without savings, having two small children? By scrimping on everything and borrowing from family where we had to. True, my father-in-law was generous with house rent, and letting me buy milk off the farm for 50 cents per gallon, as well as gas at business rates from his chicken houses where we lived. I bought groceries on the way home from college, while Loretta took care of the babies, a new one each year until we had 4. I followed my father’s pattern of thrift in buying groceries. I set a mental limit in those days on what I would hope to spend for each item: 39 cents for cold cereal (mostly corn flakes and Wheaties), 30 cents for meat, (mostly chicken, hamburger and hot dogs, which we are still majoring in many years later.) Once I pondered over splurging even a little at the meat counter, gazing at a chuck roast for 43 cents a pound. Weighing everything, I stoically walked away from it. Things had to fit my price.

Not that my children ever went hungry, or undernourished for all my thrift. When I took a nutrition course under Professor Wyse, one assignment was to work out a budget of food for a week for a family, in my case of 4 people. It had to be balanced for nutrition. I came up with a grocery list that was nutritionally balanced for just about $16.00 for a week. The professor thought that would be impossible. But on checking my menu and prices, she had to concede I had done it. With her teaching and my father’s example, I can claim that my family never suffered nutritionally, although years later, our teens could look into the refrigerator and say that there was nothing there to eat. No quick, junk food, they probably meant. We were drinking 3 gallons of milk every 2 days when they were teens. And occasionally we bought soft drinks when they were on sale, like two for the price of one. When I bought ice cream bars, I let them buy them from me so they would learn the value of money and I would not have to limit their appetites. They usually had jobs in those day.

Now three decades later in Belize, my penchant for thrift still serves me well. Our food variety is limited, but nutritionally sound most of the time. Fortunately, the kids we have with us accept this fairly well but appreciate some variation from the main dishes. They have learned to eat high protein oatmeal pancakes, and banana soup(milk, bananas, and bread, sweet, of course) It still hurts to let them have free rein of cheese and peanut butter, so we hide the peanut butter in the bedroom, along with a few other semi luxury items. But perhaps I am shifting a little like my father as he got older. Bank President Sam Hoover once said that when Dad was young he was tight as the bark on a tree, but as he became older, he loosened up a bit.

Yet when it comes to buy clothes for us, we are still scrounging. Perhaps my children don’t want me to show off my “missionary” outdated Goodwill clothes when we return each summer and so they buy me some nice clothes. Likely out of their heart of love they help me hide the working out of my scrounginess. Keeps me looking more respectable as most Americans see it. Yet except for sandals, I have bought few new shoes and clothes for years. Retired people, after all, can save doubly at Goodwill every month. Yet here in Dangriga it is still rare to buy a soft drink for myself. I had to train my self to feel it is all right to buy a $2.00B fry chicken when I feel a little hungry when I am not quite satisfied with the second rice dinner for the day which I usually pass over. And the bark is loosening a bit more as I am quite willing to buy ice cream cups when Loretta and I go to town sometimes after supper. Well, last night I bought her one, but none for me. It seems this culture and standard of living wraps itself around my old ways of stinginess toward myself quite comfortably. But also following in my Dad’s footsteps: it is easier for me to spend on others than on myself. But when we are in the States, it is a little easier to spend on ourselves. This past wedding anniversary we went out to eat at a nice buffet restaurant back in the States and it hardly hurt at all to spend $17.00 on ourselves. At least I covered up any discomfort in front of Loretta. There is also a kind of reward, a good feeling, when our life long pattern of thrift enables us to help friend to a minimal standard of living, especially in medical needs and food, which they need to survive well. I have told some kids that if we would go back to the States and live for ourselves, we could easily drive an SUV. But scrounging has been a part of what brought us to where we are now. As I have told many, if you live like a poor person, you will be rich. But is you live like a rich person, you will be poor.

So I will keep on scrounging- with a purpose. But it is still a little hard in Belize to ask at the fruit and vegetable market whether the stuff under the table is to be sold, or for free. I glance around to see who might be watching me. And I still buy corn flakes, now in bulk, and other things in various stores where I can save a few pennies, or dollars now and then. Yes, I will always be a scrounger.

January, 2005, in Belize  

*This essay is from Learning to Give, a collection of some 30 "Essays in the Effort of Dealing with Prosperity and Needs". The essay following is also from this collection.