Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my friend’s grandma and a really cool frugal practice she had that I got to witness.
My friend, Jen, got a pretty necklace for her birthday and when I asked her about it, she said that not only was it from her grandma, but it had been her grandma’s. When her grandma turned, I don’t remember, 75 or 80 or something, she told the family that she was done buying presents and would be downsizing stuff she had through gifts, especially for birthdays. A couple awesome things about this practice:
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It took pressure off her family trying to suss out “what grandma would have wanted” with dividing everything in the home after she passed. Much of it was already given away.
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Related to above, it cut down on comparisons in bequeathing stuff because things were given away slowly, mostly privately. No “I only got the sapphire necklace, why did you get the diamond earrings,” because it was grandma’s choice years ago and it didn’t happen all at once in front of everyone.
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If, for some reason, someone doesn’t want the gift, there’s less emotional pressure. Instead of being the ugly couch my beloved grandmother left me, it’s just the ugly couch my beloved grandmother gave me.
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You can time the gift to the needs of the recipient. That ugly couch may be cherished when your granddaughter is moving into her first apartment, but might not be as appreciated years later, after she has had a real job for a while and developed her own decorating style and collection of furniture.
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It was a way to share her personal history with her family. In Jen’s case, I think the necklace was an anniversary or birthday present from grandpa. Her grandma wrote Jen a note about it in the birthday card to share the memory.
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Less stuff. Certainly grandma deserves to be surrounded by her favorite things in her twilight years, but decades of things add up. You may have golf clubs long after you can play golf or a closet of formal dresses when you don’t go to events and they don’t fit or aren’t age appropriate.
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And, obviously for this thread, it saved grandma money. I honestly don’t know what Jen’s grandma’s financial situation was, but money in the bank is more versatile for medical bills/ Viking River Cruises/ spoiling a Pomeranian than stuff in the closet.
I’m not saying that you need to end your life in absolute asceticism sitting on a stripped bed in an empty house, but downsizing your things gradually and on your terms seems like a pretty brilliant way to pass on your legacy to the next generation.
February 06, 2021 at 01:02AM
