Saving or Spending
I am convinced there are two kinds of people, those who enjoy saving and those who enjoy spending. Of course there are extremes in both cases but generally saving or spending is a state of mind. I have lived both as a saver and a spender.
Saving
My mother grew up during the second world war. She saw her father who was a lawyer and member of parliament lose everything. They packed a few bags and left a large house with paid servants. They lost everything they owned and walked. My grandfather said he lost everything twice in his life. This obviously had a lasting impact on my mother.
When my mother came to Canada, my grandfather as an immigrant found any job he could to support his family. He painted houses in Edmonton and later when he moved to Toronto he found a job as a clerk in an insurance company. On his immigration papers it said he was a farmer. But he was an educated lawyer and in Ukraine a politician. He helped the poor. Now he was poor. In all the time I knew my grandfather I never saw him as poor. He was always happy. He was always more interested in people and still in politics. I remember him sitting in his single bed bedroom writing at a small wooden desk every night. He was content doing what he enjoyed. Money did not affect him as long as he had the basics. Also interestingly, he did not take his identity in money or wealth. His social status was in who he was and what he did as a person. People came to visit him often and they very much respected him, even calling him doctor.
My mother developed a responsibility about earning money. She took odd jobs like cleaning people's houses. Later when her mother wanted to stop her Avon selling business, my mother reluctantly took it over. My mother sold Avon, cleaned houses and sewed our clothes. She made a very tight budget and even saved money for a rainy day. With her saved money my mother later loaned her father $10,000, that would be close to a million dollars today.
When my mother met my father, he also did odd jobs to survive. He was a taxi driver for one day till he crashed the car. He repaired washing machines and the first one took him 8 hours which he recorded as 1 hours of labour because he had to learn how it worked. He always said he was an expert when he had no experience at all. (Later I used the same strategy. As a student I went to a St. Georges Golf Club in Toronto to sign up to be a golf caddy. Day one on the job I was standing in a long line of caddies and along came a golfer asking for a double A caddy. Nobody responded and I was at the end of the line with a low B rating and so was guaranteed to not get picked all day. So I yelled out, "I am. I'm an AA" He picked me then later after we finished he complained to the clubhouse that I should only have been a single A (I made a few mistakes like using a cart instead of carrying the clubs on my shoulder and holding the pin with a shadow over the hole). But I still got paid much more ($4 for a full round) as an A than I would have. And later I was known as an A and got picked to caddy at the Canadian Open Championships with a compassionate man how taught me all the rules of a good caddy.)
My parents were very poor. My mother later got a job as a secretary and they decided that my father would go to university and my mother would pay for it. My father didn't last one semester because he didn't like to study. He tried to bribe the professor to get a good mark. He was thrown out or quit, I don't know but then he went to Ryerson when it was a trade college and he learned drafting. He became a draftsman. But he liked to show off. He liked modern things. He made himself stereo speakers and bought stereo equipment. He bought one of the first reel to reel tape recorders. His mother bought him a brand new 1955 Buick which he then used to 'go out' while my mother stayed home with the kids. My father partied and spent money. He never saved. Money to him represented buying new things and showing what he bought. (I did get this from my father that I too liked to discover new technological things.)
My mother was a hard worker and she saved everything because of her deep rooted fear of being poor. My father was a smart man in physical things like mechanics but not in book studying things. He did not save. Later in life he would continue to inherit money and spend on things like ski vacations to Europe and dinner parties for friends. My father made no investments. My mother early on made investments. She started to learn how to trade on the stock market. Then there was no internet so there was no way she could track her investment but instead had to rely on brokers who changed heavy rates (over $100) to buy and sell stocks. But Canadian bank stocks cost one dollar then so in the long run there were no bad investments. My mother continued to invest in various stocks and mutual funds and lately I started reading, learning about trading and investing (I was very cautious at first with the goal to not lose money instead of the goal to make money - I wish today that instead of practicing for a year I had actually invested in real stocks which would have made me wealthy, but that's the story of my life I guess). Today my mother trusts me to manage and buy and sell her stocks, which is a big honour to me. I still discuss with her what I plan to to and she still gives me her approval or not.
My mother saved all of her life. She enjoyed watching her savings grow. She did not enjoy spending it. She would spend eventually on things on sale like very colourful clothing but even today she still saves more than she spends. But my mother has come to a point today where her whole life of saving now is pointless. She can't spend it. All she can do is pass it on to her two children, one who would spend it and the other who would save it.
My mother's fear of losing everything and being poor was the motivation to save and invest. not only did my mother save all the money she earned and invested (she rarely sold stocks or mutual funds) but she also saved all her things. Her basement is full of all the clothes she and me and my sister ever owned. She never threw anything out. The kitchen table and radio that we had when I was a kid are still there. My mother took it almost to an extreme of becoming a hoarder, only she has a very large basement. I have inherited some of these hoarder traits and I have taken that to extremes as well because today I take great pleasure in decorating our kitchen and my bedroom with free things that people threw out to the curb as garbage. Even though I can buy things I take greater pleasure in finding them for free outside or in Value Village.
My mother was a hoarder but she was also generous. She gave to charities and she always helped people (like me when I was living destitute in the garage with no money). My mother is generous.