Self sufficiency on the NYTimes boards

As Matt points out, “Damn, that’s an impressive comment“:

A middle-aged man stopped me in the store yesterday, pointed to the fresh pineapples in my cart and asked me if I was going to prepare them myself. He had a small, “cored” pineapple in his cart and noticed that it cost more than the two large pineapples in mine.

I described how to prepare the pineapple and chose the rest of my produce. His question made me grateful that I had grown up in a home where we were expected to make our Christmas presents, where we ate over 95% of our meals at home, and where all of my siblings and I started paying for our own clothes as young teens.

In grad school, my late husband and I made our own lunches and put the fifteen dollars a week savings into IRA’s. I’ve never made a lot of money but I’ve clipped a lot of coupons. I own a home without a mortgage, drive a new car that’s paid for, and I still clip coupons and prepare my own food. My basic rules of finance are that “all banks are evil” and “cell phone companies are worse.”

I work with my students on “avoiding the twenty-five cent nickel.” Every day, I thank my parents for not giving me everything I asked for and for teaching me how to take care of myself so that I would be able to have enough to help others.
— the Colonel’s daughter, Dunmore, PA