Monday, October 17, 2022

Another Thrilling Day

Today we got our first snow. It was a few flurries, and it did not accumulate, of course, but the weather forecast predicts snow flurries until Wednesday, with accumulations possible. I find that hard to believe, but it is cold, gray, windy so who knows. 

We went back up on the hill to the Amish produce stand to buy more apples. Tim saw 50 lb bags of red potatoes and he does love red potatoes. At $16.00 per bag, that worked out to $3.20 per 10 pound weight. In the grocery store, white potatoes are $5.99 per 10 lb bag. (We didn't see any red potatoes, which are usually more expensive.)

I made a meatloaf and made mashed potatoes from the red potatoes, just to give them a try. Tim was so pleased with them that he is headed back up tomorrow to buy another 50 lb bag. They will last, stored in the old coal room in the basement and a hundred pounds of them will get us nicely through the winter and probably provide nice seed potatoes for this spring. 

I did half of my apples today, and will do the other half of them tomorrow. 

William opened his first bank account tonight and he feels very much like a man. He earns money working for his grandfather, and his tendency has been to spend it all as soon as it crosses his palm, a dangerous habit.

This has been quite a sticking point with him. He feels that he earns the money and it is his. We argue that it is never a smart thing to spend all your money. We have begun to insist that he has to wait one week before spending his money, a 'cooling off' period. We also are insisting he save a portion of his pay. 

He waited a week and he was quite irritated about it, but interestingly, he decided that we were right. He did not buy what he thought he wanted for some carefully thought out reasons. He did spend $6 leaving him with $8 left over from his two weeks pay. He decided to bank half of it, leaving his $4 to add to next week's pay, when, once again, he'll have some decisions to make. The deal is, whatever he banks, we will match, which is a very attractive incentive to him. It cost us $25 to open the account and we are hopeful that it will lead to more better money handling skills. 

Tim gets caught up in Netflix series. Breaking Bad was the first. He got caught up in The Last Kingdom. Better Call Saul, and then Valhalla. Now he's watching some Turkish thing called Resurrection. I'm kind of amazed. It's all in Turkish, with subtitles, but he is fascinated. The other day, he said, "This has five seasons. I've watched over 30 episodes. How many episodes does it have?"

 I wandered off to Google to find out. 

458 episodes. Totally not kidding.  458 episodes. 

"Holy cow!" he said. 

"You'll be watching this when you're 70," I said. 

And that's today. 


16 comments:

  1. That's a damn good deal for potatoes. And that's a good way to teach young William about money. A very good lifelong skill to have.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is a good way to save money. You can get a bushel of apples for $20. We're picking up a 10 lb bag of vidalia onions as well.

      Delete
  2. It's a very good idea to get your grandson to think about money.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We've really tried hard to instill good money habits into our kids. Now it's the grands!

      Delete
  3. I wish we had Amish nearby.
    Great trick to teach William money skills. As he sees it mount up he will be grateful you made him do this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Amish aren't the only sources of bulk produce for us. There is the farmer's market in town. We rarely go to that simply because we are generally busy on Saturdays. There is a big fruit and vegetable store in Jamestown. You can buy produce in bulk there. I don't know that the Amish are any cheaper, really, but they are closest to us. Today, we have to run to Jamestown, to get some SS questions answered. We'll probably stop at the big fruit and vegetable stand and see what they've got.

      With William, I hope so. What I hope that he sees is that good money skills will give him an independence and freedom that he'll never have if he doesn't know how to manage his money.

      Delete
  4. $25 to open a bank account? Seems odd. There should be free accounts, especially for children who may become life long customers. To match what William saves is a great incentive. That's a 100% return on his savings!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The $25 is the minimum balance required to keep an account open. We don't just hand over that sum to the bank. We put $25 in his account to open it. He added his $4. From now on, we will match whatever he wants to put in each week.

      Delete
  5. I hope William gets into the savings habit and sees just how good it is to have a little nest egg building up.
    Is October a little early for snow?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not really. It generally starts around then. It would be unusual for it to begin sticking.

      Delete
  6. So much to comment on with this post.

    I got the sense that you did your apples by hand. If you do, you need to look at one of these gadgets.

    https://www.amazon.com/lasting-Magnesium-Stainless-Powerful-Suction/dp/B09BKTSJFJ?ref_=ast_slp_dp&th=1&psc=1

    They work very well and make processing apples fast. I can do a bushel of apples in an hour using it.

    My kids evidently have the same genes I have because I have encouraged them to spend money they get and they usually just hang onto it until I put it into a savings account for them. Even when they are given money instead of presents and told to spend it on a present for themselves, they won't. I hope William learns to save because he will be way ahead of his peers if he masters it.

    I tried to get into Valhalla (well not literally anyway) but just couldn't. I saw the original "Vikings" which came out first which was outstanding and Tim would probably like but you can only stream it with Amazon Prime right now. Not sure if you have that subscription but if you do, you can mention it to Tim. Valhalla just felt like a poorly rehashed version of Vikings.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I can watch a few episodes of almost anything, but to be honest, I am not interested in watching nearly anything day in and day out. I lost interest in Downton Abbey. I watched the first season of Stranger Things but by the end things were strange enough that I wasn't interested in watching more. I have seen those apple peelers. This is the first year I have done things in bulk like this. I imagine that it will be something to consider.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Wow! I haven't even heard of that show. Maybe I should look into it...though I'm daunted by the number of episodes! Good thinking re William and the money-management skills. Not enough kids learn how to manage money.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Don't do it, Steve. DO NOT look into it. (That's my take, for what it is worth...)

      Delete
  9. I haven't heard of Resurrection and with that many episodes I won't even look for it. I've seen Breaking Bad and recently finished all 12 seasons of Blue Bloods, currently working my way through Sons of Anarchy. I watched Valhalla right after I finished Vikings.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I'm so impressed with your produce prices. You'd be shocked if you came to Hawaii and saw our fruit and veggie prices.

    ReplyDelete

I'm glad you're here!

Weary

I am sure that everyone has seen the video of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. I lived in Baltimore for a couple years while my...