Saving Up Isn't Hard to Do

From the (402)411 (NE).

"I did a little ranting back in January about our throwaway society, lamenting the dearth of repair shops and general lack of interest in fixing what's broken.

And you ranted right back.

I don't remember the last time I received so much positive feedback on a HouseWorks column.

Apparently I struck a nerve. I'm not the only one who wonders how we came to be in this situation.

So at the risk of repeating myself -- and irritating all but the folks who wrote last time -- there's something else I've been wondering about.

Do you remember "saving up"?

The first time I saved up for something, it was a rifle. Not a go-out-and-hunt-Bambi rifle. I was only about 8, and it was a toy.

I have no idea what it was called or the brand (Mattel, probably -- everything seems to have been in those halcyon days), but I remember distinctly that it looked like a revolver with a rifle stock.

I'm also pretty sure it fired little plastic bullets, using the dubious power of Greenie Stick-em Caps.

It really doesn't matter.

What matters is that I wanted that toy so badly that I saved up for months to get it.

Socked away my quarter-a-week allowance, banked every cent of Christmas and birthday cash, prowled the alleys for pop bottles (they were worth two cents each then), and eventually I had amassed enough for the rifle.

It probably cost only about $6, but I still remember plunking down my money at the department store and how proud I felt that I'd done it myself.

I don't think I had that feeling again until 20-some years later when I sat at a long conference table in a bank, signed umpteen-gazillion forms that mentioned dates I'd never before considered seeing, and handed over the biggest check I'd ever written to buy my first house.

It was a glorious moment -- made even more glorious because it marked the end of years of saving up.

When did we stop doing that?

When did it become socially acceptable to own a house or drive a car far more expensive than we could afford? When did we start eating out more often than eating in, sipping $4 cups of decorator coffee and paying more than $100 a month to watch television? When did charge cards replace hard, cold cash?

If anything good can be said to come from the Great Recession, I think it will be that perhaps such questions won't need to be asked for a few decades.

I haven't really saved up since I bought that first house, but that's mainly because I'm a squirrel by nature and pretty much incapable of not saving money.

My accountant mother, child of the Depression that she was, instilled in us boys at an early age that we always should tuck something away. When my allowance rose to $1 a week, I was expected to save a dime.

Also, I've been accumulating "stuff" for the past 30 years and have just about everything I want or need.

Oh, I just thought of something--I don't have that pool table yet. Best start saving up for it."