Dad and Mom were both very careful how they spent their money.
Mom experienced the Great Depression in America and Dad grew up in Rome with close to nothing.
Yet, his Roman friends told him he was destined to do well in life and they quoted an Italian proverb that says if you have wide gaps between your teeth you will experience good luck in your life.
And so it was. Although “luck” does not exist, but only God’s hand working behind people and events, Dad did have wide gaps between his teeth!
When he was about ten or so he while wandering around the streets of Rome, his mother having told him that she was hard pressed to know what to do because they did not have any food money, Dad came across a diamond ring on the street that he duly brought back to his mom. Grandmother took it to a jeweler and sold it and they apparently were able to live on the proceeds for some time.
In those days Dad would save all his pennies and then go to a nearby outdoor food stand and negotiate with the peddler on the price for one tiger banana. For him that was a great event. Later on he finally saved enough money to purchase a bicycle. He then participated in a bike ride about 200 kilometers long that brought him down almost all the way to Naples. When his mother found out she promptly took his bike away from him for 6 months. I think it may have been because he had not told her beforehand and must have come back pretty late that night. Dad said that was the hardest punishment he ever received and that when he got his bicycle back he was careful not to ever disobey his mother again.
During his period of internment in the southern United States as a POW he would go through the showers every night and search for any soap bars or tooth paste that the other Italian POWs had left behind. He would pick up everything he could find and then either use it himself or trade it together with the cigarettes all POWs were given. After three years of careful saving he had $100 saved up and when he returned to Italy in 1945 that is what he brought back with him!
I am not exactly sure how my Dad got his businesses launched except that he was soon engaged in selling tickets at the Opera House at night and trading dollars for Italian Lira during the day. He also was always buying and selling something all the time. He would start at about 6 AM and not stop until about 10 AM or later.
He was the embodiment of “a penny saved is a penny earned”. Later on Mom would say of him that he was like a squirrel storing acorns all over the place. I think my Dad liked doing that and hearing others say that about him. He was also a firm believer in diversification.
By the time Dad was 60 years old he had investments in all sorts of different assets from land to gold coins to cash in bank different accounts.
And to those who said he had the Midas touch he would reply: “Oh no. I make my money one dollar at a time”. He meant he had to earn every dollar slowly and no earnings came to him without substantial effort.
Today, many years later as those who know me realize, I usually try to buy the cheaper items on the menu when we go out to eat. My wife and I enjoy going to restaurants where the total bill will not be over $8 or $10 per person.
All this was because of the example both my parents set in being so frugal.