Economic Lessons My Father Taught Me

My father died last month. He was 91. During his 50 years in business, he tried to teach me some lessons about life and money. This is what I learned.

1) When you make an agreement, write it down. I came from a family of five children. Every Saturday allowance would be dispensed like cups of navy grog - five cents for the youngest, twenty-five cents for the oldest and gradations in between. These dispensations were recorded in a ledger with deductions for misbehaviour. Disputes about who received what were resolved by reference to the ledger. As we grew older, allowance stopped and loans began. Each transaction was private but each was accompanied by a promissory note. When you make an agreement, write it down.
2) Cut your cloth according to your needs. As an orphan, my father could not afford to go into debt. He only bought what he needed and what he could afford. He didn’t drive when he could cycle and he didn’t cycle when he could walk. He was always well dressed but if you looked closely, his clothes were always well mended. It was from him that I learned how to darn socks. He had learned the difference between wants and needs. “Don’t cut your cloth according to your wants”, he would say, “cut it according to your needs”.
3) Don’t forget where you come from. My father befriended a man who lived alone in a rooming house in Hamilton. What little family he had, he was alienated from. My father picked him up hitchhiking and brought him by the house where he was paid to do some gardening. We called him Popeye because he spent most of the time on the verandah, smoking a borrowed pipe and telling stories about the war. This went on for years. One day, after we had driven him home, I asked my father why we did this. He said, “There was a time when I had no family to speak of and I lived in a boarding house too. Don’t forget where you come from, that could be you.”
4) Pick up the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves. My father was an inveterate recycler. He saved newspapers and rolled them into fireplace logs. He never discarded anything if he could avoid it. He took special pleasure in his early morning raids on the local lovers’ lane where he could collect bottles and cans to be returned for cash. It was inconceivable to him that one would pass by a penny on the street and not pick it up. “Pick up the pennies”, was his motto, “and the dollars will take care of themselves”.
5) Every budget, no matter how small, has room for the common good. Every week my father attended church and made his financial contribution. This was in addition to other charities he supported regularly. We received our allowance on Saturday but on Sunday we were expected to donate a portion to the church. These days we are all encouraged to set up an RRSP and “pay yourself first”. This was not my father’s view. His view was that first of all, we need each other in order to survive. Therefore, investment in community is a necessary expense and every budget, no matter how small, has room for the common good.