Walking in Nani's Shoes

As the financial world in the U.S. today continues to spiral downward, I find myself turning more and more to the wisdom of my great-grandmother and what I know about how she saved money. See, she lived her adult life during another horrendously crappy time: the Great Depression. She was married and had three children. Like most women then, she did not work and to boot, she was married to a man who worked the railroads and (though a hard worker) was occasionally known to come home on Friday evening having drank his entire paycheck in the pub.

Yet, this spirited gal still managed to save money over the course of her adult life. A substantial sum of money. She would set aside whatever dollars and cents she could manage and once she would reach a certain dollar amount, she went to the bank and bought a savings bond. Then she'd start the process again, buying bonds as often as she could. And once purchased, she never cashed them in but would roll them over into bigger bonds when they matured. I don't think she even shared this information with her husband at the time. This was safe money, earning a little interest without risk of loss because of a volatile stock market or a husband who might've found other things to do with it besides save for the future.

When age started stealing my Nani's memory, she and her husband (who had long since abandoned the booze and had become the wonderful, loving Poppi I knew) sat down with my grandmother (their youngest child) and grandfather to let them know all the details of their finances. See, she was smart enough to realize her memory would soon be completely gone and that someone else needed to know where all their savings was or risk it sitting in a bank somewhere for all eternity unbeknownst to family.

My grandfather--who is himself pretty financially savvy--was astounded, he told us, to learn just how much money they had socked away. Nani had bought so many bonds and each growing bigger by the year, steadily worth more and more. You may scoff at the pittance of saving money this way, through savings bonds or more commonly these days, CDs (in the same vein as a bond as far as safety and amount of interest earned), but either of these compounds and can amount to something substantial.

I never knew just how much money they had, but I know that they lived many years (10 or so, I believe) in a private facility that was half assisted-living and half nursing home. This place was a gem for them and their needs as they lived their golden years but it also carried a gem of a price tag: multi-thousand dollars/month. It was covered by what Nani saved.

This blows my mind--she was able to save money in the crappiest of all economic conditions with an unimaginably dismal life situation taking care of three children with a husband who was known to thwart her often. He may have been contrite afterwards but contrite didn't put food on the table. Yet, she made it work, raised three great kids and saved dough in the process?! I have no excuse whatsoever to not be doing the same since I have hardly the difficulties that she did. And since the market scares the fool out of me, I'm returning to her roots and adopting the CD mentality. Save, save, save, buy a CD and forget about it. Save, save, save, buy a CD and forget about it. One day, the stock market will be a possibility for me again. But even then, having some of my money in a safe locale is smart. For now, I'll follow a proven method of savings. I'm walking in my Nani's shoes.