Waste Not, Want Not!

In July, 1959, hubby began his very first “real” teaching job. He was hired as the Vocational Agriculture Teacher in a little town east of Wichita Falls, Texas. Yes, back then, they were simply known as Vo-Ag Teachers. Now, they are Agricultural Science & Technology Instructors. Big deal!

We had a new baby and were sitting on top of the world, with a salary of $3200 a year! We lived very thriftily, not requiring a lot of money and, I might add, not spending money on foolish whims. H was consumed with his new job, and I was consumed with a new baby. That was our entertainment.

It was during this time that pizza mixes from the grocery store became popular. The one that we always wanted to get was a brand by the name of Chef-Boy-Ardee. It was always so appealing, in a bright yellow box with that cute chef on the side... but we never would get one because we didn't have a pizza pan! (foolish whim!)

One afternoon, H came in from school and told me he had a surprise for me. He had taken the lid from an old aluminum container, cut the handle off, smoothed down the rough edges and made me a pizza pan! Oh, my goodness! How could it get any better than this? The next time we went to the grocery store I proudly picked up a box of Chef-Boy-Ardee Pizza Mix and carefully placed it in the shopping cart.

That was 48 years ago...and guess what? We're using that home made pizza pan to this very day! (now a family heirloom that our children will undoubtedly squabble over at our demise!)

My mom always said....”Waste Not, Want Not!” and, that's pretty much the philosophy we've followed for 50 years....not to say that we have never wasted, but we've not made it a habit. Yes, in our more lucrative years, we fell into the pattern of "buying now, paying later" and adding "stuff" to our growing collections. But that old adage of "waste not, want not" always hung in the recesses of our minds, and finally came to the forefront before we created any permanent damage. In the end, it has paid off for us.

“Do today what others won't, so that you can live tomorrow the way they can't.”

Just a wee bit of wisdom to be passed on for the day!