From: jane@soave.swdc.stratus.com (Jane Beckman)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re: money money money or re: a square grand
Date: 9 Sep 92 22:12:40 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc., San Jose, CA

In article <brumby.715830546@nella11.cc.monash.edu.au> brumby@nella11.cc.monash.edu.au (Stephen McNamara) writes:
>   "What I would worry about is how would I change? Would I just accept
>that I don't have any money worries for a while and keep going as I am, or
>would I change in some way, and become the sort of person who somehow seems
>to suit that amount of money? An aunt and uncle of mine own 40% of a$3.5
>million marina, besides a hundred other things I don't know about, and I
>really can't stand their lifestyle. So much of their lives seem to revolve
>around keeping the money flowing back and forth, and I just can't see why
>myself. Which is probably why I'll never have that kind of money. :-)"

Jilara frowns.  "Cautionary tales.  My father had a lot of
friends with LOTS of money.  Yes, money becomes obsessive to
some folks, and it also warps them.  They can't conceive of a
lifestyle where they can't dine on smoked salmon cassoulet and
have the decorator redo the house every two years."  She
grins, momentarily.  "Everyone always thought my father had to
be rich, because he tended to lead the $300-dinner-lifestyle.
Well, as I said when I was nine years old, "We may be poor as
churchmice, but we always manage to live like the Shah of
Persia."  My father's secret was he saved *nothing.*  Spend,
spend, spend.  Gave my mother ulcers.  Why buy beans, when you
can buy pate?  There's an old saw, variously attributed to
Oliver Wendell Holmes and Oscar Wilde: "Give us the luxuries
of life, and we will dispense with the necessities."  It was
always feast or famine at our house.  My father's philosophy
was that money is only as good as the enjoyment you get from
it.  However, I would urge balance in this aspect, since we
were "ruined" as periodically as folks in a Victorian
melodrama.  And my mother would always have to use her wits to
bail us out, plus numerous secret savings accounts she cribbed
from the household funds, shaving a dollar here, a dime there.

"On the other hand, there was Grampa Don.  Grampa Don was my
grandmother's long-term boyfriend/lover (since the 1940's).
She refused to marry him because he was a miser, and obsessed
with money.  "There would always be a voice in the back of my
head, wondering if he might someday murder me for my assets."
He was worth over half a million, in a day when half a million
was worth about 6 or 7 million of today's dollars.  He bought
his clothes at the Goodwill, had the same furniture he'd had
since 1925, and ate only cheaply and at home.  After all, food
and clothing costs money.  His one extravagance was the little
sports car he drove.  He read the stock market reports
obsessively, and I remember once hearing him mourn that he had
lost $40,000 on his stocks in *one month* because of a
downturn in the market.  What good did his money do him?
None.  He died living as he always did, and without a will.
(He had a will leaving everything to my grandmother, but tore
it up when she died, and then had a stroke two months later.)
The state took most of the estate, and his illegitimate daughter
(whom he would never give a penny to when he was alive) got
the rest, which was something like $50,000 by the time
everyone got through with it.  She was delerious with joy,
being in very poor health and needing surgery.  At least one
person benefitted from his money!  

"I've always been sort of relieved that he didn't have the
will, though.  His intention, after my grandmother died, was
to leave his money to *me.*  I can look back at ways my life
was greatly benefitted by having to struggle, things I did,
choices I made, people I met, and I can honestly say that I
think I came out the better for NOT having the money, and am a
lot happier because of it.  Interesting thought, that..."

--
  Jilara   [jane@swdc.stratus.com]

"Don't be so open-minded your brains fall out."  --Barry
Shein, on the net
Newsgroups: alt.callahans