Tuesday, January 18, 2011

January 18, 2011--Snowbirding: Money

My sister-in-law says I’ve been writing a lot about money. Actually, about not spending money.

I said that this is not true.

She said, “Double check because it seems to me that you have been. And it concerns me. You guys worked hard, saved carefully, and now is the time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. You shouldn’t be denying yourself anything.”

I said, “I don’t sense we’re denying ourselves anything. Though I do admit we’re being careful.”

“Double check," she again suggested.

So I did. And discovered she is right. At least partially. As you can say when protesting a parking ticket—I’m “guilty with an explanation.”

True, in recent weeks, especially since arriving in Florida, I’ve written about the frustrations of trying to save money by suspending our cable TV and telephone service in New York and how recently, when getting our car washed, we discovered that the Rub-A-Dub place had a weekend hand-wax special, which even included a reduction in sales tax so we saved yet more. And last season I wrote about my $7.00 haircut (which this year is $8.00) and how we swallowed our Greenwich Village pride and were beginning to get into early-bird dinners with two-for-one deals.

But I thought I was writing tongue-in-cheek, having a little fun at my own expense by representing us as being extra frugal while in south Florida among the other ultra money-conscious snowbirds.

To that I could just imagine my sister-in-law quoting Freud about the serious truth hidden within humor. How in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious he writes about how jokes happen when the conscious allows forbidden thoughts which society suppresses.

In my case I don’t know about society’s role in my fooling around about spending less, but my insightful sister-in-law has me thinking further about what might be called my “money-thing.”

Is it a case of while in Rome . . . or something more profoundly true (and disturbing?) that is happening to us as we are (slowing and gracefully) aging and living on a version of fixed incomes?

As for the when-in-Florida part of this, I have been noticing our kitchen counter piling up with discount coupons. The ones found in the glossy supplements slipped into the Sunday papers or those in the little booklets deposited in one’s mailbox. Rona has been gathering coupons for Motrin (one of our mid-life staples); Scott toilet paper (we are tending to use more and more); and even a 50-percent-off coupon for the local department store, Mercer-Wenzel (a truly wonderful place where the sales clerks’ average age is at least 80).

On the way back from breakfast this morning we stopped at CVS to restock our dwindling Motrin supply (the dollar-off coupon was set to expire in a few days). I waited in the car, reading the sports section. When Rona returned she was carrying a bag which from its size had to contain more than a small bottle of Motrin.

“It looks like you found some other things you needed,” I said, eyeing the bag.

“Nothing that I needed,” Rona said with a sly smile, “but something hard to resist.” She was rummaging around in the bag and pulled out two small bottles of pink nail polish. She held them up for me to see.

“Nail polish?” I said. It is very rare for Rona to paint her nails.

“They were having a 75-percent-off sale.”

“Seventy-five percent?” I was stunned by how steep the discount was.

“Yes. These cost $1.25 each. Can you believe it?”

“That is amazing.”

“I thought, at that price I’d do my finger and toenails. If they were full price I would never have thought to buy them. Much less nail polish from Chanel, which costs . . . “

“Fifty dollars?” I guessed.

“Not that much. Maybe $18.00”

“Even though, if you wanted it . . .”

“I know, I could afford to buy it. But maybe I haven’t adjusted my price-point enough to get used to nail polish at five dollars much less $18.00 for a small bottle.”

“Like me with a six pack of Diet Pepsi. How when it went to more than $2.00 for quite some time I refused to buy it. Then I adjusted. I had to have my Pepsi.”

“I must still have some adjusting to do,” Rona mused.

“But is it us, the aging process, or being in Florida where everyone seems to be clipping coupons of one kind of another that is causing us to be so seemingly obsessed about money?” I was thinking again about what my sister-in-law had noticed.

“Probably some of all of the above,” Rona said.

“With regard to Florida,” I said, “obviously a lot of people come here, like it here because their dollars go further. For real estate, for taxes, for eating out, for the cost of a movie ticket. How much did we pay the other day to see True Grit? I think in New York it would have been $12.00 or so.”

“Six-fifty,” Rona said, “Quite a bit less. And since you didn’t like it that much it felt like the right price.”

“But I notice that a lot of people, people like us to be fair, who are not struggling financially are very, very money minded. Way more than their incomes and assets would require. Why are they, why are we like that?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe being here in a cost-conscious environment encourages one to be careful about money.”

“Or allows us,” thinking again about Freud and the release of unconscious impulses, “to act in ways that reflect what really motivates us or who we truly are.”

“You mean, how when in New York we feel pressure to keep up with a certain level of lifestyle and spending?”

“Maybe that too.”

“Which reminds me,” Rona said, “about our shopping spree the other day at K-Mart.” We had gone there to look for more blouses of the kind that Rona had bought at the K-Mart near us in the City. She was wearing them all the time and was hoping to be able to get a few more since they fit nicely; were flattering; and were, well, very inexpensive.

“And what did we end up doing?”

“Buying two huge bags of clothes.”

“None of which we really needed. Though I did get some more of those blouses.”

“But the rest—things you bought as well as all the stuff I found—we bought because . . .”

“. . . it all looked good; we could sort of use the pants and shirts and belts we found; but above all else, they . . .”

“. . . were incredible bargains. How much did we spend for everything?”

“Less than $150,” I recalled. “You remember when we got to the cashier how she made a comment about being able to buy so many things and still spend less than $150?”

“I do. I remember your commenting when we schlepped the bags to the car that we must have bought 25 pounds of clothes. And how by the pound they cost about as much as chopped meat.” We laughed at that.

This pleasure, on reflection, suggested additional ways to think about our seeming frugality—how we’re having as much fun finding bargains as indulging in luxuries. We do enjoy them—we have been buying quite expensive bottles of Bordeaux, quoting an old colleague who used to say that life is too short not to drink good wines; and have been quite extravagant when it comes to real estate. The place on the beach here in Delray and the cottage on the coast of Maine are recent cases in point.

But then there is something else we have been observing that is less attractive, assuming what we have been up to qualifies as attractive—some evidence of mean-spirited miserliness that at times sets off small bursts of class warfare.

On January 1st the Florida sales tax was lowered by half-a-percentage point. Down to 6 percent from 6 ½. This meant that on New Years Day Rona’s $2.00 New York Times at the new shop in town, with tax, cost $2.12 rather than $2.13. She and Nancy, one of the owners had quite a bit of morning-after fun about how much Rona would be saving. “About 15 cents a week,” Nancy chuckled, since the Sunday Times here costs $6.00.”

“That won’t even offset the extra cost of a gallon of gas,” Rona said. “Can you believe it will soon be $4.00 a gallon?” Nancy rolled her eyes up in her head.

“But,” I said, as we got into our car, “though fortunately for us this doesn’t mean that much—we are very lucky to be in our circumstances—for others, over the course of the year, it will add up to what for them will be real money.”

Rona agreed about how lucky we are and also about for many other people every little bit helps.

Later that day we went up to Boynton Beach, to Troy’s BarBQ, to pick up an order of chicken and ribs. Troy makes about the best BBQ in south Florida. He operates on the margin of a poor African-American community out of a former gas station. He’s set up inside, behind barred windows, in what used to be the station’s office and out back behind the broken-down building he has set us his smoker. Out of it comes wondrous cooking.

You can call in an order and then come by to pick it up or, better if you have the time, you can just show up, hope he’s open, and wait with others gathered there for some of his down-home food. He primarily serves people from the nearby community but then some of us from the other side of the tracks (literally—the old Flagler rail line runs right by him) who are in the know also wander over. It’s quite a good and friendly place to hang out.

The man on line in front of us was from our side of the tracks and from the look of his handmade loafers, Armani slacks and shirt, as well as his $150 haircut, he appeared to not be wanting very much. We were impressed that he knew about Troy’s and was comfortable coming to this part of town.

He had called in an order that included collards but Troy told him that they had run out. I was disappointed too since they are among my favorite of Troy’s sides and I had hoped to buy some. They are made—as all his side dishes are—by local women and are delicious. Collard greens this good are hard to come by.

“Can I get you a substitute?” Troy asked. Rona and I were also thinking what we would get in place of them—for $35 the Family Value Pack includes a full rack of ribs, half a chicken, and three sides. Rona whispered, “Maybe extra beans.”

The man in the Armanis stared at the menu. “I think maybe I’m OK with just two sides. I’m trying to loose a little weight.” He patted his silk shirt and stomach, which I noticed could be a little flatter.

“I can do that.” Troy said and then to himself calculated, “Let’s see, with two sides how much should that be?” The man leaned closer so as to hear better, including the bottom line. He had a fist full of cash. “How does thirty-one sound to you?”

The man in line nodded and began to peel a twenty, a ten, and a dollar from his billfold. He slid them under the lowest bar of the window and Troy passed the bags of ribs and chicken and sides through to him. I started to edge closer. The smells rising from the smoker were making me famished.

But the man, with bags in hand, remained at the window. “Anything else I can do for you?” Troy asked.

“It’s January 1st, isn’t it?” the man said.

“Last I noticed,” Troy said.

“Your prices include tax, don’t they?”

“Sure do,” Troy said, aware before I was where this was going.

“And . . . ?”

“And?” Troy said back to him.

“Shouldn’t I be getting some change? From the lower sales tax?” Troy stared back at him. “I mean, there should be some savings from . . .”

“Just speak your mind,” Troy said without any attitude whatsoever.

“I think I should be getting a dime in change. I mean, from the new sales tax.”

“A what?” I couldn’t help myself from blurting out.

The man with the alligator loafers turned to glare at me but fortunately restrained himself from saying anything to me. But to Troy he said, “A dime,” and slid his hand through the bars.

Troy pressed a dime into it and said, “Thanks for you business. Be sure to stop by again real soon.”

The man behind me in line muttered sotto voce, “I hope that will be when I’m not here.”

I didn’t know what to say. I felt guilty that someone from my privileged world would behave this way. I hoped that neither Troy nor the man behind me would associate me with him. I stammered a version of an apology.

“That’s not necessary,” Troy said, “It’s an individual, not a group thing. That’s the way I prefer to look at the world.” And with a big smile asked what he could do for me.

With some hesitation I too ordered a Family Value Pack, “But with all three sides,” I was careful to say. “That’ll be $35, right?”

The young fellow behind me laughed and offered me a high-five, which I happily returned.

“Not a penny or dime less,” Troy said, joining in the laughter.

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