This is probably a very predictable and boring thread.
I’m sorry,in another thread I took the piss out of R/O.
I’m off abroad tomorrow so I went into a charity shop to get some paperbacks to kill the very long flight.
And I saw a very frail old lady definitely over eighty and probably older looking for a second hand overcoat because hers was “getting a bit thin and” its better to get it now because it will be cheaper then in a few weeks when it gets colder"
And it gutted me.
She’s almost certainly worked all of her life and she’s reduced to this.
I wanted to say “I had a mum,I’ll buy you a new coat ,not a second hand”
I knew that she would have been insulted at somebody offering her charity.
It totally guts me,all the things she’s lived through and she 's reduced to this.
Are you sure that she was broke and not, perhaps, just really, really frugal? People of that age lived through the deprivation of the Great Depression and, in the UK, the post-war years. Some of these people are still very careful with money.
My mom has been insanely frugal her whole life and shops mostly at the Salvation Army, something she has taught me as well. She has a front closet jam packed with winter coats. More coats than any person ever needs.
It makes me very unhappy as well to see quite elderly people scraping by in poverty, if indeed this was what you witnessed. I hope she was just a frugal lady as posters are suggesting.
I like to shop at Salvation Army myself. A quarter of my wardrobe is triumphant Salvation Army finds.
There is nothing wrong with charity shops in the least. In fact, many of them have really good and high quality finds for a tiny fraction of the new price if you know how to look. I have bought and proudly worn some stuff from them even as a professional. You don’t know her motives so there is no reason to get upset. Some people shop discount stores as a hobby no matter how much money they have.
I don’t think my 86-year-old mother has bought a new piece of clothing in at least 10 years. She buys everything at Goodwill or yard sales. She’s not wealthy, but she’s certainly not living in poverty. As **Dewey Finn **noted above, she lived through the Great Depression and is pretty much constitutionally incapable of being what she would consider wasteful or extravagant. A few times, I’ve suggested that she buy something new to replace an item that is outdated and/or doesn’t work well. When I’ve pressed her on it, she has come close to crying when she explains that she just can’t do it. But, for the most part, she’s satisfied with what she has. And those clothes she buys secondhand? She actually looks very well put together and stylish.
Your concern for the elderly is touching and admirable, but I suspect it’s unnecessary in this particular case.
My sister (not an old lady yet) is an executive who makes $100K a year, lives in an expensive subdivision and regularly browses Goodwill. Once a year she has the buyers from Replacements Ltd (the online china and silver retailer) come to her house to buy her finds. She doesn’t buy many of her clothes there, but she does buy some. She loves a bargain.
Could I get a translation on this sentence? I’m sorry,in another thread I took the piss out of R/O. It sounds like someone from the UK but I just don’t understand it.
I can see how depressing it would be to see granny squeezing a nickel but if she’s healthy then she may very well be content. I use to have an elderly woman who lived behind my house and she would hunt me down for repair work as needed. I felt so bad because she insisted on feeding me as payment and her ethnic cuisine was not palatable to me. I finally just accepted the food and pitched it.
My mother is also 86 and hasn’t bought anything new in 20 years (underwear excepted I guess) and is well enough off. She is so tight though. Unfortunately my sister has learned all her habits.
Next time, just pay the cashier before she gets there. “Here’s a 10. I’d like to pay for that woman’s coat. If she refuses, then it’s a donation/the next person’s purchase.”
My grandmother volunteers at a local Christian charity shop, and is just absolutely tickled pink that she has first dibs on all of this useless second hand junk. This is the same woman who gardens (as in food growing) voraciously, saves plastic bags and paper dinnerware for second use, and snaps up packets of crackers from the restaurant table. She’s in her late 70s and grandpa’s in his 80s and they refuse to use their window AC, even though it’s been hitting 90 degrees out here, because it costs money.
From what I hear, grandma and grandpa aren’t hurting for money. That’s just the way they like to live.
This thread reminds me of a true story, now several years old. Does anyone remember a news story about an old and apparently poor woman in New York who died and left $12 million to a private women’s university? I’m thinking maybe her name was Rose Schnabel or something like that.
She was a retired IRS auditor, and had a knack for investing. Through clever and timely stock market investments, she turned a few thousand dollars into several million. However, no one knew she was rich; she lived like a pauper in a crummy old apartment. Her broker was quoted as saying that she didn’t spend as much as fifteen cents a day on food. She had worn an old black coat for decades, and her niece finally pressured her to accept the gift of a new one. When Rose found out the coat cost $100, she was furious and made her niece return it, and went back to wearing the old one.
When she died, she willed $50,000 to the niece who looked in on her, and $12 million to a private Jewish women’s academy.
So sometimes you can’t tell just by looking who’s poor and who’s not.
[hijack]I wish I had Rose’s investing skills.[/hijack]
Not that the above points about frugality aren’t often true, but at least in the US poverty among elderly women is a serious problem. From thist website: Issues - Center for American Progress
“Elderly women are far more likely to be poor than elderly men. Thirteen percent of women over 75 years old are poor compared to 6 percent of men.” The graph shows the gender gap widening after age 65. Of course, at those ages women are a lot more likely to be alive, so there is that.
Yes! I have done that myself- when I see a mail carrier coming in for a soda on a hot day at the little convenience store, I just hand the clerk a buck to pay for it . (I know most of the clerks).
But yeah, that’s just the way they live- frugally. And in clothes, they are sooooo right. I took to shopping on occasion at the thrift shop for clothes myself- or maybe even eBay for gently used clothes. This way I can get the high quality clothes I like (Harris Tweed, e.g.) for a 1/10th the price of new. Now sure, you can’t buy all your clothes like that, but for outerwear, it’s fine.
My MIL, who has plenty of money, still loves garage sales. You don’t know that this old woman was living in poverty…she could be just very careful with money.