Tag Archives: dime

Coin

Coin: (n) a flat, typically round piece of metal with an official stamp, used as money.

Can I tell you when I fell in love with me?

I had flirted with myself for years. But always, at the last moment, I pulled away from true affection for my being because I saw ugliness beneath the surface.

Living so close to me, it often made things tense.

Yes, it was necessary for me to love myself–but it had to be legitimate. It had to be real. It couldn’t be some clever concept pulled from a book by an author promoting self-esteem.

But one night it was put into motion. I had been working on the concept of generosity. I was trying to learn to give a damn about those around me who were socially, emotionally and financially damned.

I had made strides.

Back to my story. I was sitting in my chair, and noticed that a young lady, who had come to dinner, was cleaning off the nearby table, and had taken a dime, a nickel and two pennies that she saw lying next to a glass and threw them in the trash.

She discarded the coins.

I perfectly understood her action–seventeen cents seemed insignificant. She had no available pockets. And holding the coins in her hand while trying to grasp glasses might result in an embarrassing accident.

As soon as she walked away, I retrieved the seventeen cents, ran out to my kitchen, found an old pickle jar and threw the coins inside.

I set the jar on my counter, and I challenged my friends to bring all the change they had that might be tossed aside, and put it in my jar.

Every forty days I took the jar down to the local market and poured it into the coin machine. I was always astounded when I walked away with fifty dollars or more each and every time.

I had fifty dollars to give away to someone in need.

Fifty dollars to buy groceries for a family.

Fifty dollars for the guy on the street who made a sign from a piece of cardboard about his destitution.

And it all came from tossed-away coins.

So let me coin a phrase:

Don’t give up on coins. It may take a while, but they quickly change into dollars which can help those who just never have quite enough.

 

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Allowance

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Allowance: (n) a sum of money paid regularly to a person

I had to get out my educated pencil. (I am often glad that my writing tool sought higher education, since I didn’t.)

Having an educated instrument, I can take my meager abilities in mathematics and join with this smart pencil and come up with some fascinating figures.

Case in point: when I was eleven years old, my father reluctantly gave me twenty-five cents a week for allowance. Actually, he held a quarter out in front of me and always offered at least two or three regrets and four or five warnings about the value of money and how important it was to spend it wisely.

But you must realize, this was at a time when twenty-five cents would buy you five candy bars.

This was my allowance.

In comparison, when I lived in Hendersonville, Tennessee, with my children, I gave each one of them fifteen dollars a week. Making use of my magical pencil of intellect, I realize that this was very similar to the quarter I received when I was eleven. For now a decent candy bar at a convenience store can cost upwards to $1.50 to $2.00, and everything else is equally as inflated.

So which is better? To have a little bit of money with lots of possibilities, or have a lot of money with little possibility?

I also recall that by the time I reached my sixteenth birthday and wanted to go out on a date with a girl, my dad, who was now ailing from cancer, proudly handed me over a five-dollar bill for my first date. Similarly, when one of my young men in high school was going to be taking out a lady, it was necessary for me to give him three ten-dollar bills, which he still grumbled at, saying that he would have to really scrimp for dinner.

I know that the root word of “allowance” is “allow.” But even as a grown-up, I am learning that it is possible to simplify your finance even in the midst of raging increases. You don’t have to feel like you’re cheating yourself. Just “pass” on opportunities that don’t give you the payoff you desire.

For instance, when the alarming transition occurred and candy bars went from a nickel to a dime, I had to negotiate my purchases much more carefully, while waiting for the eventuality that my parents would catch on … and pop me up to fifty cents.