Here I am, night after night, staying up late counting my nickels and wondering how I will pay for the next day’s chocolate milkshake. And cookie, if funds allow.
After 73 years, I have never quite caught on to how everyone I know seems to be able to open the money spigot whenever the spirit moves them and stand back to watch the cash flow out like water over the rocks at Niagara.
Now and then, I do get a glimpse of a secret or two but even then, I can’t understand it.
This evening, for example, I was in a shop to take advantage of seniors’ discount day (for all the good that day has ever done me) when I watched a woman before me in line negotiating with the teller over the purchase of a very small quantity of garlic powder.
“That will be five cents,” said the cashier, sheepishly, as he rang up the meagre sale.
After a brief search through her purse, the woman retrieved a nickel and slid it across the counter. Of course she did, as women almost always seem to pay with cash. Maybe that’s part of the secret, I wondered.
To my astonishment, the teller handed the woman two pieces of paper – the first a receipt for her five-cent purchase and the other a sheet on which was printed a $10 discount she would receive on a future purchase of at least $30.
Where on God’s green earth could you get a $10 return on having invested a mere five ridiculous cents, I thought.
So, this is how it is done.
Based on my experience over these many years, I would be lucky to qualify for five cents off my next $10 purchase. As the woman happily left the shop, I watched to see her climb into what just had to be a limousine but was surprised to see her driving a far-from-new sedan which was no stranger to rust. Maybe that’s another clue as to how the wealthy do it. Invest one nickel to instantly earn 20o nickels and then drive away in a rustbucket.
I think I am in need of a brain massage. And a super large milkshake.
I will begin my new adventure into frugality by skipping the cookie.
©2024 Jim Hagarty
