I don’t think I was much different than most kids growing up in Heber at the same time I did. Most of us didn’t have much money and most of our parents didn’t have much money. That didn’t seem to be very important to us at the time.
As a small child I did like most kids and asked my parents for money when I wanted or needed to buy something. Like most parents they said yes sometimes and no sometimes. We as children knew that there wasn’t much extra money. I guess we saw Mom and Dad paying the bills each month and heard them discussing family finances. We grew up knowing that they didn’t have enough money to satisfy all the “wants” of four boys, but that if something was really “needed,” they would do everything they could to meet that need if it was essential. I think Dad earned about $10,000 per year when I was in high school.
Mom and Dad paid me an allowance for doing jobs around the house. It wasn’t a lot but I didn’t need a lot. I was expected to pay tithing, save a little and the rest I could spend as I saw fit. Usually, when I was small, it went for candy or something from Sprouse-Ritz in Holbrook where we could shop for toys.
Another way we had of supplementing our allowance was to collect pop bottles and turn them in for the deposit money. We also sometimes worked for money (usually a dollar) doing some special job for Mom. I think she found some more of those special jobs when Christmas was approaching so that we had a few dollars to buy gifts for others in the family.
When I was small, we drew names for Christmas and then bought a nice gift only for the person whose name we had drawn. That way everyone got at least one nice gift for Christmas but it didn’t take lots of money because we were only buying one gift. If we bought presents for others in the family they were, of necessity, very inexpensive.
When I was eleven or twelve years old I started helping Terry at the store and from then on, I earned money of my own. Mom and Dad still helped out with big expenses and they paid school expenses like lunches and supplies. I pretty well took care of other expenses when I was in High School.
I worked in the summer at the store and earned enough to buy school clothes and other school supplies. I also worked during the school year after school and on weekends and that kept me in a little cash for incidentals. I think I started at fifty cents an hour and when I was in college I was working for $2.75 an hour.
When I went to college, Mom and Dad worked out a deal with my grandmother who lived in Mesa. I lived with her and they paid her $20 per month for my food. In return, I took care of her yard and helped her with other chores. I had a scholarship that paid tuition and books and I usually had about a hundred dollars left over which got me most of the way through the semester. I was usually able to work a few weekends or during vacations at the Heber Store which allowed me to earn a few dollars for expenses.
I learned young in life that it was OK to wait until I had the money to pay for something I really wanted. I learned to save up money until I had enough money to buy whatever the item was. I found out that the waiting didn’t kill me and made the eventual getting of whatever it was that much more exciting. I also learned to go without a lot of things others had and I don’t think it hurt me much. My Mom and Dad, but especially my Mom, hated to be in debt to anyone. I guess I inherited my dislike for debt from them.