I used to get paid every two weeks, and the boss tipped me out with a $100 bill to cover the extra work from catering. Or maybe to avoid giving me a raise, since payroll triggers a number of added costs. Either way, I had a check, which I deposited all except for $100, and I had a $100 bill. This gave me $100 cash per week, my pocket budget.
Bills got paid by check. It’s how we did things in the aught years. My MO was to write a check for every bill in the mail basket once a week. If there wasn’t money to cover it all, I put a post-it note on the outside of the envelope with the amount, and the date it needed to get mailed. Then I stuck it in a wooden hand that held it until it went to the mailbox. Everything got paid on time that way. The $100 weekly pocket budget covered gas, groceries, paying an older student to drive my daughter to school, and any extras. If we wanted to go out to dinner or do something fun, I checked what was in my pocket, and knew immediately if we could do it. We usually could. Things were cheaper back then.
I think about this system sometimes, and how outmoded it is now. I pay bills online, and have a debit card that wants me to charge 15 debits each month. Paychecks are deposited over my phone. My weekly system worked for me, but I don’t need it anymore. Then I think about old people, like the elderly woman in front of me in the grocery store who paid with a check. She carefully recorded the transaction in the check register while the cashier called for a manager to approve the check, because it isn’t routine anymore. I was in a smaller neighborhood grocery, and everyone was kind and understanding. We will all be that person some day.
Older people spent years doing what I did for a small part of my life, creating systems. Some of them couldn’t change after doing the same routines for forty or fifty years. Waiting until 11pm to call someone long distance became irrelevant, but I wonder how many of them still wait until at least 5pm. Same with calling collect at the end of a road trip, when the person on the other end would refuse the charges. It was a free way to say “I got there.”
Clipping Wednesday newspaper food coupons went away with print newspapers. I used to see people in the grocery store with organized little coupon wallets. Probably, there are lots of other things that I didn’t notice because they never became part of my life, skills older people honed that nobody needs anymore. At one time, people darned socks when they got holes, because socks cost more than time did. They cut buttons off worn out shirts before turning them into rags, because they sewed. I tried cutting off buttons, but they just piled up. I mostly sew easy things like pajama pants.
These skilled people got left behind while the world moved on without them. My seventh grade social sciences teacher called that future shock. I think about it, because at some point, you can’t keep up. I add digital coupons to my virtual loyalty card, and I wonder what my tipping point will be.
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