By Clyde James Aragon
As I sit here in my semi-easy chair, staring at my 60-cents-off-a-gallon gas coupon, I wonder when I will use it. Shall I wait until my old Chevy sputters to a stop, or pull into the next station I come to?
Yes, in this day and age of high gas prices and astronomical meat prices, I am well aware that it’s time to save. As a senior, I now see the wisdom of Ben Franklin when he said, “A penny saved is a penny earned.” He also said, “Where can I get affordable frames for the new bifocals I just invented?”
Let no one call me a greedy geezer. I have become a savvy shopper.
We savvy shoppers started by squeezing the last bit of toothpaste from the tube, hanging the shampoo bottle upside down until we got the very last drop, and using the milk in the back of the refrigerator until it turned to cheese. From there, we moved on to cheap afternoon matinees, haircuts for those 50 and older, and 10 percent discounts everywhere in town.
Oh, how we study the weekly grocery ads, clip coupons, and pounce on bargains like a tiger that has stumbled upon a gemsbok. You see, this is as close as we’re going to get to big-game hunting in this society.
As a savvy shopper, I buy hamburger from the clearance bin. As I always say to whoever will listen, “Gray hamburger comes from gray cows.”
I wasn’t always a savvy shopper. In my younger days, I would foolishly toss $50 at a pair of jewel-encrusted high-tops and wantonly spend $30 or more at an oyster bar. But those days are behind me. I’m on Social Security now, and I’m going to stretch those dollars like a rubber band around a bunch of asparagus.
One way I’ve found to save is to use the cheapest spices sold at the dollar store for my cooking adventures. Years of drinking coffee and tea have fried my taste buds to the point that I can’t tell the difference between a tasty vichyssoise and a burnt water buffalo. So why spend money on spices that go unnoticed by my feeble tongue?
Except for sugar. Seniors need real sugar. You can’t sneak a sugar-free muffin past me. When it comes to sweets, my tongue is as sensitive as the Hubble Space Telescope. I want real cane sugar made from real canes—and don’t try to give me that turbinado sugar. That fake monster!
I am, however, disappointed in many retail businesses. While I love case sales and can always use 44 jars of spaghetti sauce, why can’t these stores give us seniors things we can use, like cases of Bengay, cotton swabs, vanilla-flavored Ensure, or long-lasting tennis balls for our walkers? And who couldn’t use reading glasses bought in bulk?
We seniors are the engine that keeps all the other engines going. Give us what we want, and we’ll show up at the cash register every time.
Not that it’s easy being a savvy shopper in this competitive world. Many a time, I’ve been beaten to the cheap chuck steak by others of my ilk who got to the store earlier than I did. They sneer and laugh at me behind my back in the checkout line. Oh, the indignity of it all!
My thrift has not gone unnoticed.
“Aragon,” I’ve been told, “you are so tight, you squeak.”
To which I proudly reply, “That’s because I bought my hip replacement at Handy Hank’s Minor Defects Prosthetic House.”
I’m ashamed to admit that I could have saved an additional 10 percent if I’d bought it used. But sometimes the day is sunny, the birds are singing, and you just feel like splurging.
As the years pile up, I find that saving money is just the challenge I need to stay razor-sharp. These days, the hunt for a bargain is as satisfying as wearing a sharp jacket to the buffet—especially when I bought it using my senior discount card.
The views and experiences expressed are the author’s own.
