A Lucky Penny

Money is not something I like to think about, least of all ponder global economics, stocks, cybercurrency or any other forms of investment. A few years ago I experienced financial freedom for the first time in my adult life. The ability to cover a whirlpool of expenses without worry. I was able to spend the equivalent of $20,000 dollars on necessary repairs in the house that just sold, but has yet to close. But the past few months I’ve had that money-tight-I-can’t-breathe-feeling, like trying to zip up jeans from the don’t-fit-right-now drawer, wiggling on the bed sucking the air out of my stomach until the button closes, no matter how painful. The panorama is indeed much smoother than in the past when I looked out and saw nothing but pot holes on the road ahead. There will be a rainbow and a pot of gold, but with that comes a lot to consider, decisions to make, study subjects that don’t interest me, grow up and play quarters with straight Campari. So, I am guessing that this stretch of decreased sales, impact from the devalued dollar and my decision to continue funding the repairs at hand regardless of my income is actually a blessing. It forces me to plan ahead, contemplate my next move and look beyond the hand to mouth reality that I have lived by.

My grandma Millie was a star at investing and planning ahead. She tried to teach me early on about making money multiply by playing card games, gambling with beans and always sending me checks to deposit in a savings account. When my mom was short of funds I had the cushion to fall back on. We took family vacations to Las Vegas where my grandfather would sneak my cousin and I into the casino so we could pull the handles of the slot machines until we got kicked out and had to settle for wading in the fountains filling our casino cups with stolen wishes, mostly pennies, but some dimes and even quarters. Money was my family’s entertainment and I was a money magnet, I stumbled upon it. She taught me to look over the curb, because that’s where the rest would be. She was right, I found over a hundred dollars that had blown over a busy New York sidewalk leaving a single dollar bill like a crumb leading to the loaf of bread. One day at a gas station we saw a man drop his whole bill fold, thinking he had put it in his back pocket. She had me run, give it to him and advise him to be more careful and use his front pocket.

When I was about 25 my grandma sent me a check for 2 thousand dollars and told me to go to the bank and buy a CD. I went to the historical Wells Fargo downtown San Francisco, pushed the shiny brass bars and walked through the thick glass doors. I eyed the oversized space that I had visited on a field trip as a child to see the original Wells Fargo stagecoach and tried to decide which of the heavy wood executive desks I should go to but instead u-turned my ass right back out the fancy doors and down the steps direcly to my neighborhood bar to play pool. Years later my grandma asked me about that CD and I told her the truth, that I never bought it. I spent the money on a trip to Mexico. She was disappointed in me and now I am disappointed in that me. Not to say that I would have any of that money, I’m sure it would have been spent long ago. But who knows, maybe it would have opened my eyes to the possibilities of passive income. Who knows maybe I would have discovered other ways to make money aside from severely hard work, from sciatica contracting, heel spur cristalizing, vein spidering hard work. At least I would have had the experience of what it meant to invest, which was the lesson she was trying to teach me.

Here I am 30 years later, having watched my mom lose her lifes’ earnings that could have provided her with a comfortable retirement, I am finally ready to learn. To not be intimidated by opulent doors and stiff numbers, just like I wasn’t afraid of taking off my shoes and collecting coins from the bottom of forbiddened fountains.