Tuesday 28 June 2011

The Money Tree

This post is in participation with the Group Blogging Experience, and this week’s topic is a picture prompt. If you want to blog with us, go to the GBE2 Facebook page and request to join the group. Everyone is welcome.


If a money tree started to grow in my garden, it would have to be a weed. Real plants die for me (or get dug up by the local squirrels). I’m useless with plants – but my weeds flourish beautifully.

But I digress.

Several blogs on this topic have been about what people might buy if they had a money tree; others have highlighted the various things that money can’t buy – family, friends, love, happiness, health. Here’s my experience:

When I was a child, my father had a low-paid clerical job, so there were no luxuries, only necessities. Just as an example, when I was about 7 or 8, I had one thick exercise book in which I used to write my stories. I learned to write very small so as to fit more on a page! In pencil too, not pen, because when the book was full, I would erase one story in order to write another. My mother, who’d learned ‘make do and mend’ during the austere years during and after World War 2, was adept at patching and darning worn clothes, or unpicking an outgrown cardigan and using the wool to knit another. By today’s standards, I guess we were poor, but at the time I wasn’t aware of it, since many of our neighbours and friends were the same.

Later, when I was a single parent, bringing up two girls, money was tight. I had a reasonable salary as a teacher, and my mother’s ‘make do and mend’ strategies stood me in good stead, as I was able to sew and knit clothes for my daughters. One major problem was that I had no ‘reserve’ funds so the breakdown of any equipment, such as the washing machine, or worse still the car, assumed titanic disaster proportions. A money tree at that time would have come in very useful but, looking back now, I survived without it. The advent of credit cards helped, but I dreaded getting into ‘debt’ (apart from my house mortgage) so the credit card was restricted to the direst emergency!

Now my girls have flown the nest, and they both have their own homes, partners and families. They’re not ‘rich’, they’ve both had their own ‘lean’ years but they can now afford far more than I could at their ages, so I’m delighted for them.

And me? Well, in retirement, I guess I have my own ‘money tree’ now, in the form of several pensions – money coming into my bank account each month without me having to go out to work to earn it. Okay, I know I ‘earned’ it in the past through my contributions to pension funds, but it still feels like ‘money for doing nothing’!

I live well within my income – maybe because my upbringing and later experiences as a single parent have taught me to be careful with money. I’m not extravagant, I look for cheap offers in the supermarket, I don’t buy things I don’t need, but I do have the money to buy what I need and do the things I want to do. A couple of (relatively small) legacies have allowed me to make-over most of the rooms in my house, and in the last 10+ years since I took (early!) retirement, I’ve done a lot of travelling, in mainland Europe, USA and Canada, and the Middle East.

So, somewhere along the way, I must have planted my money tree and, like the weeds in my garden, it’s now flourishing. Mind you, if there WAS a real money tree, there’s this VERY nice little cottage near Galway in my beloved Ireland that I would LOVE to buy!

30 comments:

  1. This reminds me of saying--something to effect that being rich isn't being able to have everything you want, it's not wanting much. I've found that since I retired I actually "want" a lot less. Except to travel--can't get enough of traveling.

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  2. Very true, Angela. While my grandsons want the 'latest' in technology (iphones and computer upgrades etc), I'm quite content with what I have.
    And I love travelling too!

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  3. Love your take on the money tree!

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  4. Thanks, Jennifer! It was an interesting subject to think about!

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  5. I traveled so much as a kid, I'm quite content to stay home now. Flying is so stressful. I prefer to drive.

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  6. Great post and you have lived a great life. I am happy for you... :)

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  7. I don't particularly like flying, Ana. Correction, the flying is okay, it's the take-off and landing I don't like! But if it's the easiest way to get from A to B then I'll do it.
    I love seeing new places (as well as the fmailiar ones, especially in Ireland), but I'm always glad to get home too!

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  8. Your post reminds me of my in-laws who always mended, watched for bargains--just simply did everything right. In their retirement they were able to travel a bit and live without lots of worry. I think they nurtured the money tree along the way and it has provided them with "shade." Thanks for your lovely post.

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  9. Thanks, Vanessa. Being retired is great - I've sometimes described it as my true vocation in life LOL!
    The world is such a different place than it was when I was child in the 1950's but, on the whole, I prefer now rather than then.

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  10. Your in-laws sound a lot like me, Kay. I really like your idea of living in retirement in the 'shade' of the money tree. That sums up how I feel now!

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  11. That is good. We always want better for our children. Some don't learn how to live within their means.

    --Diana Jillian

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  12. "it still feels like ‘money for doing nothing’!"

    I will begin to collect mine in 5 months and I am more than happy about that! I retired at 61 last December and decided to just make it through this year until I am 62. Since my husband has not retired yet, it is working.

    I really enjoyed this one. :)

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  13. Great post Paula! I think you reached the ideal--something that the poor far more often achieve than the rich; CONTENTMENT.

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  14. Great post! I really enjoyed it :)

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  15. Beautiful post, Paula.

    I don't care to be rich, but I would like to be 'caught up'. A money tree could help with that.

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  16. Diana, I think my daughters learned money sense from me, but thankfully they don't have to count the pence as much as I had to do!

    Jo, enjoy your retirement and the 'money for doing nothing'!

    Mike - you are right, contentment is being happy with what you have.

    Stephtee - good to see you here!

    Debra - the occasional 'windfall' from the money tree is always welcome, of course!

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  17. I really enjoyed your post. It reminded me the other day how I told my kids 'Why don't you go outside and play!! I never had a Playstation when I was growing up, and I survived. I was perfectly content!!" They looked at me as if I grown a horn on my head, but they went out and played, and to their surprise they had fun. Imagine that. A wonderful life can be had without all the riches of the world!! LOL

    Kathy
    http://www.thetruckerswife.com/

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  18. A lovely approach and I really like reading your post!

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  19. lets get a weeding already....hey..meet you in Galway!! I'll make some honey cream biscuits and after a spot of tea we'll go for a long walk around the wicklow and through the bend : )

    LOVE YOUR BlOG!!

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  20. Totally agree, Kathy. I remember the hours we spent playing outside as kids and all the 'imaginary' games we played.

    Claudia - thanks so much, glad you liked it.

    Brenda - will meet you in Galway any time! I LOVE Ireland!

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  21. This is wonderful and I hope that you do get your cottage in Ireland--how pretty! I'd love to go there too!

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  22. LOL Marian, not much likelihood of that - unless I win the lottery, or that weed in my garden really DOES turn into a money tree ;-)

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  23. A refreshing take on this week's topic...thanks for sharing with us :) Cheers, Jenn.

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  24. This is beautiful, Paula. Yes, you did plant a nice money tree.

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  25. Thanks, Jenn and Langley - it's good not to have any real money worries now that I'm older. I'm not rich, by any standards, but I have enough for the fairly simple lifestyle with which I'm quite happy! Maybe having had money worries (and panics!) in the past makes me more appreciative of my current situation.

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  26. My money has never stretched properly. If I downsize anymore I'll be living in a camper – but – if it's in a nice neighborhood with Internet access, I could make it work!

    http://theresawiza.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/magical-thinking-and-the-money-tree/

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  27. I hope you get your Irish cottage, if for no more than an extended holiday. :O)

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  28. I love the internet because it is cheap entertainment.

    Joyce
    http://joycelansky.blogspot.com

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  29. Is that the picture of the cottage? I can see why you are in love with it! I would want to buy that too if I could.

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  30. I wouldn't mind a money tree... but I am like you where it would have to be a money weeds or I would kill it.

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