Tag Archives: money

3577. Security

19 Replies

Today it is the turn of the third of eleven questions from Noelle of “Saylingaway” who nominated me for the blogging Sunshine Award. I am answering the eleven questions one a day! Today’s question is: If you could have anything you wish for, what would be your wish?

The answer to the question is possibly the same one that many of you will also have – at least somewhere tucked away in the background: SECURITY. I’m talking about the cost of living.

I pay the rent every week and every week wonder where next week’s rent will come from. But here’s the facts: we pay a very low rent for a three bedroom, fairly modern house. The landlords haven’t increased the rent – not even once – during the ten years we’ve been here. During COVID they cancelled the rent for the lockdown duration.

I pay the power every month. It’s just increased 30% these last two weeks. The internet had just gone up by 11 dollars a month. That doesn’t sound much does it?

The price of petroleum has blown through the roof! I have to laugh at Californians complaining about the price of gas! The American gallon is different from the Imperial gallon. Convert the American to Imperial and then convert it to litres! After conversion if we were buying the American gallon it would be over $12 a gallon! No one here seems to point this out. They think Americans suffer because they pay far too much for their gas!

The price of groceries is astronomical. New Zealand is one of the few countries that taxes non-processed food – I think the other place is Sweden? The car warrant of fitness and annual registration are due this week! I hope the inspectors don’t say, “You need new tires!” (Note a week after writing this: They did!)

All this whinging is simply for a purpose: to say, wouldn’t it be nice to have security? Of course, there are many who genuinely struggle a lot more than me.

Having said all this, two things come to mind. In retrospect I remember us six kids sometimes eating hearty meals and our parents quietly eating a cold sausage. They didn’t seem to complain. And secondly – in all my seventy-six years I have never been without! It’s not impossible that security is what I want and security is what I have. I think I’m muddling having security with the thought of being a millionaire.

3545. Rat-tat-tat

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It was an interest that Frank had. He was wheelchair bound. He rarely got out of the house. Mavis, his wife, was devotedness itself. She was the one who wandered down town every Saturday to put a dollar or two on the horses for Frank. Any horse would do. She was no expert.

Frank would listen to the race on the radio. Occasionally he won a couple of dollars, which was always a thrill.

On this particular Saturday Mavis had selected the horse from the list. Its name was Rat-tat-tat. She was about to put a dollar each way on it when she realized that they were so short of money that week that she had better put those couple of dollars towards getting some carrots.

When she got home she told Frank that she had put a dollar each way on a horse called Rat-tat-tat, and hoped like anything that it wouldn’t come anywhere in the race.

It did! It came home first against all odds. It paid eighty-nine dollars for the win. Frank was over the moon. Eighty-nine dollars! He would put it towards getting badly needed new kitchenware. Mavis pretended to be excited. It was too late to reveal what had happened. It would kill his happiness.

The following week, once she had a little money, Mavis arrived home with a couple of cooking pots, some serving spoons, and a frying pan. She got them on higher purchase. They would take months to pay off. Pay off she did. It was worth it to see the thrill Frank got whenever he saw the things being used.

3462. Unhappily married

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Jean-Pierre and Marita had been unhappily married for many a year. The thorn in the side of their marital bliss was money – more particularly, it was lack of money. Jean-Pierre had a fabulously rich uncle who was a miser and Marita saw no reason why the fabulously rich uncle shouldn’t die and leave his wealth to them.

“There must be some way you can do him in,” said Marita to Jean-Pierre, almost every second day. “The trouble is you’re a gutless wimp. If you don’t hurry up and do him in we’ll be too old to enjoy our new-found wealth.”

“We shall have to let him die a natural death,” said Jean-Pierre. “He’s older than us by a long shot. We’ll still get many years of enjoying his wealth.”

“He was a miser and it runs in the family,” said Marita. “Look at you. Too gutless to do anything to increase our happiness.”

Jean-Pierre had had enough. He took his gun and shot his fabulously rich uncle dead. Marita went straight to the police and reported the murder. “It was my husband. I don’t know what got into him.”

These days Jean-Pierre is serving a long prison sentence and Marita is living in well-planned luxury.

3460. She did it for the money

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Everyone was ever so slightly stunned when eighty-four year old Cuthbert Sinclair married twenty-seven year old Tracey Summerville. “She did it for the money,” everyone declared.

Cuthbert Sinclair had lived alone for many years. He hoarded money. He hardly spent a penny on himself, although he had a nice car and a nice house. But he was reputed to be a billionaire, and now with no relatives nor descendants to stop him, he’d gone and married that money-grabbing floozy called Tracey Summerville. She did it for the money.

In a rare interview Cuthbert had said quite openly that Tracey had married him for his money. “She married me for my money. What’s wrong with that? Someone has to get it.”

They asked Tracey the same thing: why did you marry Cuthbert? “I did it for the money,” she said.

Well goodness me! What comments on social media! What letters to the paper! What outrage on talkback shows!

Getting married for the money is one thing; to admit it is another. “This is the most devastating undermining of the sanctity of marriage that we have ever witnessed in the contemporary world,” trembled Nora Swinburn of 246 Flint Road, Norbury.

Cuthbert Sinclair was interviewed again. What did he think of the fuss?

He smiled. “Ever heard of minding your own business?” he asked.

3406. How to get rich

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Marsha had this habit of being aggravating, which is why she had been married five times. The five marriages had also made her immensely rich. Although she had no children she referred to her marriages as “selective breeding”. One must choose very carefully the suitability of a candidate before assenting to marriage. Are they rich enough? Are they naïve enough? Will they die young without too much help? Are they overly sensitive to harping and want a divorce?

Prior to the wedding Marsha would be as nice as pie. Then after… gradually, gradually her attitude would change.  Nothing was pleasing. In the end she would ask for a divorce. “It’s not really a divorce,” she would say. “It’s a liberation! For both!” And indeed it was.

At each liberation she was able to amass considerable wealth. After the fifth she deemed herself to be rich enough not to have to endure another marriage. “Now I can sit back and enjoy life with a great deal of independence.”

Unfortunately on the very day she finalized the purchase of her luxury estate she was diagnosed with  debilitating Multiple Sclerosis.

3393. The big winner

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Last week the lottery was worth one hundred and fifty-five million dollars, and some idiot from somewhere or other won it. I had a ticket in it but got only one number so there was no prize for me.

With one hundred and fifty-five million I wouldn’t be surprised if the winner hadn’t already squandered most of it. Drugs or something. Probably already spent it on a new car and a new boat and a new house and booked a ticket to a fabulous vacation destination. Who cares where, it would probably suck anyway. I don’t know why anyone would need so much money. They were probably rich already. They were probably selfish money hoarders who never share a thing.

If I had won the one hundred and fifty-five million the first thing I would do would be to share some of it with the poor family next door. This week with the big lottery prize having been won the first prize is back to a mere four million. Four measly million compared with one hundred and fifty-five.

I’m furious as hell. This week I actually won the four measly million – yes I did. But imagine if it had been last week. Who wants four million when it could have been one hundred and fifty-five? Normally I should be rejoicing at having won the lottery but last week’s idiot taking the one hundred and fifty-five million has put the damper on that. My poor neighbours came over and congratulated me. They were obviously sniffing around for a handout. I told them to get stuffed. Who do they think I am? A one-hundred and fifty-five lottery winner or something?

A curse on the miserable one hundred and fifty-five million dollar winner. I wish him or her nothing but disaster. I’m almost tempted to refuse to accept my miserable four million.

3387.  Used car

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When Vivienne bought a new car – it wasn’t new of course, it was a secondhand bit-of-an-old-bomb but new to her – one of the first things she did was to check how to change a flat tire if she got a puncture. Getting a “flatty” on a busy road was hardly the place to learn where things were and how they worked – such as the emergency tire and the jack.

She had bought the car off a used car salesman. He was a bit creepy, Vivienne thought, but she liked the car and anyway, it was a pretty light grey and didn’t cost that much.

When she opened up the spare tire compartment and pulled out the tire, there underneath were bundles – and bundles – of hundred dollar bills. It may have been exciting but, quite honestly dear reader, she was perplexed. What should she do?

This was New York, so she didn’t think she was meant to call the cops and nor was she going to call a qualified social worker. So that explains why Vivienne now has a brand new, sparkling, unused, pretty light-grey-with-a-red-stripe Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 Convertible and is moving to Florida.

3353. Saving up

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Douglas had saved and saved and saved. He was waiting for the school semester to finish so he could visit the car museum. He had a paper round, and would deliver newspapers before school on his bicycle for six mornings every week.

He didn’t have quite enough money as yet and he was desperate to get to the museum because he loved cars. His father said he would give him the extra few dollars, but he’d have to make do without a little bit on his birthday and not get as big a cake.

He had enough money now. The semester finished. He biked all the way to the car museum. It took him about twenty minutes. When he got there, there was a note on the door that said “Permanently closed”.

3325. So there you have it

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I won the lottery. Twenty-three million is not to be sneezed at, especially since I’ve scrapped and saved all my life barely on the breadline.  I’m not going to tell a soul, not even my grown children. My four children would simply fight over inheritance money.

If I flaunt my winnings everyone will know so it’s best not to use it, not even to change a thread of the way I live. I would love to dine (just the once) in a restaurant but people will notice, so that’s a no-no.

My children and their families all have mortgages but I’m not going to help them out. It would simply lead to arguments. Sally’s mortgage is greater than the others and the other three wouldn’t like her getting more. So I’m keeping my mouth shut.

I wouldn’t mind getting a nice gravestone for my late husband’s burial site. But the kids will notice and wonder where the money came from. He’ll just have to do without, as we did without during our long and happy marriage.

I’m not even going to let people know about my riches when I die. I’m going to leave all the money anonymously to the Lily Growers Association. I’ve always loved lilies but could never afford to grow my own. I would need not only the expensive plants but an expensive greenhouse which for forty years I’ve only dreamt about. Now if I start with my lily hobby people will know I’ve come into money.

So all in all, winning twenty-three million won’t change a jot of how I live my life. It’s for the best that it stays untouched in the bank. So there you have it.

3249. Bank holdup

16 Replies

It was to be an ordinary day. I work in a bank. I stand behind the counter. There’s not much to do other than deal with money (that’s not mine) and witness signing this and that and process new bank cards. Sort of that stuff. It can get quite boring really. So I went to work this morning not expecting much.

About ten thirty three masked and armed men barged into the bank, and pointing guns at us tellers, demanded money. It was scary as anything. I handed over everything I could get my hands on. Most of the money I can’t access because it’s in a vault that I don’t usually have access to. But this day I did have access because the bank manager was away. The thieves left with practically everything.

I thought I was going to get shot. We were very shaken of course. We phoned the police, who had in fact already arrived because Karen (the teller next to me) had pressed the secret alarm button under the counter with her foot. The bank was shut for the day. We were kept there for quite a few hours answering the same questions a hundred times. Eventually we were allowed to go home.

The first thing I did was make myself a cup of coffee and sit down with a brochure to ponder what I was going to do with my share of the money.