A Tale of Found Money

Back when Stephanie and I first started dating, the second thing I learned about her family (having to measure up to her sister Hilda's standard was the first) was that everyone considered her father "tight." The tales of rationed groceries, hand-me-down clothes and monitored electricity use cascaded like waterfalls whenever the topic of family finances came up.
Over the years, I learned to take some of this as legend - exaggerations loosely based on a truth. After I got to know Lupe, I learned much of what the older siblings thought of as a major character flaw in their father was actually him struggling to keep the boat afloat without creating too much anxiety for the rest of the family. In other words, times were tough.
Lupe, like my parents, witnessed the Great Depression growing up. While his parents were fortunate enough to work, own a small business and able to provide for the family, there is a mindset which that generation was inoculated with. It is to save, keep your word and not waste. I have heard tales that his parents were the example of "early to bed, early to rise" adage. But instead of following Ben Franklin's advice in order to accumulate wealth, they simply went to bed when it got dark so as not to turn on the electric light.
Dad has always been a saver. He has told me many times that he never enjoyed borrowing money to buy things and had several arguments with his wife over it. But he was able to retire almost 20 years ago to a comfortable life and now can buy what he wants. Last fall, he ordered DSL and satellite TV. In 2004, he purchased a new Ford Mustang because he wanted one.

So what about this "found money" you ask?

Well, one of the things Lupe has done since I met Stephanie is save aluminum cans. He takes the empty coke cans the family uses, rinses them, crushes them and stores them. After he has amassed a pretty good stash, he starts checking the price the scrap yards are paying. Now that he lives alone, he just picks up the cans he finds while golfing early each morning and throws them into a plastic shopping bag attached to the golf bag. Mondays, he often finds two bags worth. He has been doing it at the golf course a long time; others there know him and sometimes they bring him cans.
Last Thursday, I got a call at work from him.
"Hey," he says, "the price is up to sixty-five cents a pound for the cans." I have never heard of it being more than fifty cents before and he was obviously excited. "But they are closed for inventory until next week. We should take them now."
On Monday, I asked Dad if he remembered to call to see when the yard opens so we can go before I work. He had, and rather than wait until I can take a few hours in a morning off, he suggested we trade vehicles and he will take my truck to haul the cans to the scrap yard. Which we did yesterday.
Around 11:00, I was paged to the phone.
"I just wanted to let you know I made it okay. It went real smooth," he is telling me.
"Good. So no trouble?"
"No. I was the first one there this morning, so it was real easy."
"Oh, nice." Now the big question, "So, how did you make out?"
Astonished and amazed, Dad can't wait to tell me. "One hundred and thirty five dollars! Can you believe that?" He had hauled more than two hundred pounds of disgarded cans in 13 garbage bags. He cashes in cans about four times a year.
So for those of you that don't think you can save anything, take a lesson on found money. Yeah, he works a little bit for it. But he pretty much pays for his entire satellite or cable TV bill for the year by picking up what the rest of us throw away or can't be bothered with.

His mother lived to be 102 years old and never was comfortable with TV.
He asked me to add this blog to his favorites last week, so he may be looking in from time to time (he will learn some things about me he may not want to!). Dad spent the winter a couple years ago downloading around 200 of his vinyl LPs to his computer as MP3 files, finessing the settings for best sound quality and renaming each file with the proper "tags" for the format. Then he imported them into his 20gb MP3 player so he could listen to them while he golfs every day. Yeah, I had to help him, but I think it is pretty cool that an octegenarian is willing to learn new things. How many great-grandfathers do you know with over 2300 songs hanging from their belt?