My Broke Days & Beyond: A (Mostly) Funny Story

I've been harping on my daughter for several years now about being good with money, and now that she's working, it's funny to hear her complaining about what things cost. Her two biggest downfalls are eating out too much with her friends, and she's got expensive tastes in just about everything, fashion being her big one right now. I haven't shopped for jeans in quite a while, but now apparently you can get jeans that are already ripped for about 80 bucks. I call them "bear attack" jeans. She isn't amused.

When I first got to Billings, I was what broke looked like. My Camaro had no insurance and 200,000 miles on it. Thanks to some kit from K-Mart that my mom had gotten me for Christmas, I owned 4 plates, 4 cups, and 4 each of forks, knives, and spoons. My "Tupperware" was old butter containers.

Get our free mobile app

I was working here at the radio station 6 days a week. I also was spinning records at T-Birds and DJing dances on weekends.

I also rented a room in somebody's basement because we hadn't invented "affordable housing" at that time. Even though the thermostat was upstairs, I had to pay the gas bill as part of the agreement. After a while, I got used to it being 84 degrees in my part of the house.

So I told my daughter to put 10 bucks away from each check. You'll be surprised how fast it adds up. The one day when you've got a job, sock it away in that 401k. Then you never even see it, and you're still saving. And when you're my age, you can decide if you want to retire or not.