| Wednesday, February 15, 2006 |
| Frugal Females Found |
Occasionally we hear amazing stories of frugal females who over a lifetime of living beneath their means and saving and investing have managed to amass fortunes. Generally because these women do not have immediate family they bequeath this wealth to a private university, non-profit organization, or even to our government to help pay down our national debt.
Margaret Elizabeth Taylor, a widow since 1977, died at age 98 (Nov. 2005) and having no surviving siblings or children "bequeathed her $1.1 million estate to the federal government and requested that it be used to help pay down the $8.1 trillion national debt." Woman Leaves Fortune to Pay Nation's Debt
Anna Patocka, who worked as a cook, died at age 95 (July 2005), and left "$1 million to local organizations". "She didn't make a million by inheriting it," friend Helen Linhart said. "She saved it." GRAFTON, N.D.: Woman leaves behind $1 million
Anne Scheiber, who worked for the IRS as an auditor, died at age 101 (1995), and left $22 million to "Yeshiva University, with the stipulation that the money be used to establish a scholarship and loan fund for deserving female students at YU's sister institution of Stern College" The Butterfly Effect (Anne Scheiber)
The fact that these women had so much wealth to bequeath surprised the folks who knew them. Each was a secret millionaire. The money was accumulated by hard work, consistent savings, and wise investing.
Anne Scheiber made quite the news splash when her bequest was made public in 1996. I remember the article in TIME magazine and the news stories which made much of her stagnant career at the Internal Revenue Service. She was someone who had a law degree and was obviously smart, but because of her gender she spent her entire IRS career in a junior position and never received a promotion nor much of a raise. This prompted her to vow never to enrich the IRS if she could help it. To keep that vow she never sold the stocks she purchased and each stock had the dividends reinvested. This meant her money just grew and grew since only sales would trigger a tax payment. While she was a wise investor, she was also an extremely frugal woman. She saved approximately 80% of her take home pay when working. She lived in a rent controlled apartment, almost never purchased new clothes, and for entertainment attended annual shareholder meetings of corporations she invested in and after using her auditing background to grill the executives would fill her handbag with the free food at the buffet and live off that for days.
I find reading these stories inspiring. There is something about knowing that these women had control of themselves and their wealth and did with it as they saw fit. While some may say "but how deprived they must have been, wearing the same clothes and eating left-over stale food". I really don't see it that way. They obviously felt that clothes were not important. You could almost look at it as they were wearing a self-made uniform day in and day out. Nothing so wrong with that. I enjoy food too much to eat stale stuff, but who knows how much I will enjoy food when I am 90? I think that is part of the problem, these women lived so long that most of the folks who did know them and spoke of them reminisced of the 80, 90, or 100 year old woman. What were these females like in their 20's, 30's, or 40's? What personal experiences kept them on their frugal paths? I wish we found these ladies while they were still alive and could tell us their full stories...
If anyone is aware of other stories like this please post a comment.Labels: Frugal Females |
| posted by Boston Gal @ 4:45 PM *
* Subscribe to Boston Gal's Open Wallet |
Links to this post:
|
| 6 Comments: |
-
Here's one - except that she started off fairly rich. Wikipedia has more info, for what it's worth.
"FAMOUS CHEAPSKATE: Hetty Green (1834-1916)
HOW SHE DID IT: During her life, this multimillionaire businesswoman (real estate, banking, railroads) was known as the Witch of Wall Street. After her death, the Guinness Book of World Records listed her as the World's Greatest Miser. Why? Green reportedly never used hot water, never heated her home, wore the same black dress every day, lived on 15-cent pies and once spent all night searching for a lost 2-cent stamp." But she also reportedly was too cheap to set her son's broken leg properly and it had to be amputated. Maybe a tad TOO miserly.
-
How funny; I was just reading that Wikipedia entry about Heddy Green earlier today! I found a link of "frugal people from fact and fiction" off of someone's blog and followed the link about Heddy to Wikipedia. Then I went from her entry to that of the Collyer brothers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers). An entertaining little bit of websurfing!
-
I remember reading in TIME about Anne Scheiber and thinking that she was a sad woman. Basically she had been denied the chance to attend college by her father which is why she endowed scholarship money for female students when she passed away. That kind of broke my heart because around the same time, my parents had to intervene for a girl we knew who wanted to attend Yale instead of going to Temple. We all thought her dad was a jerk who held her back. I can only hope that the girl I knew didn't die so bitter.
I'd like to be more frugal, especially after knowing I spent $9.01 for dinner today.
-
My great grandmother passed away a few years ago. Her husband was an immigrant from Finland and started up a small butcher shop in a rural area. The butcher shop grew to a grocery store, and eventually two grocery stores (little tiny rinky dink places). Her husband passed away and she continued to run the stores for a few years. A large chain came along and wanted to buy the buildings to put in another store, and she didn't want to run the family business any more. The chain wanted to keep the family name in the title since it had been around so long and people were familiar with it.
Well- she was in her late 70s or early 80s when she sold the business and everyone sort of thought she had been taken advantage of since she wouldn't talk about the situation. When she passed away she had $1.5 million sitting in her savings and more tied up in life insurance. The general consensus was that they bought her out, paid for rights to the name, and she just kind of deposited the money and forgot about it.
-
"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." How many times did I hear THAT when I was growing up? I learnd a lot of frugal skills: finding bargains, how to cook, how to grow and preserve food, how to sew my own clothes. I wish I had time for it all still. Women today face a tradeoff: do we spend the time to make a dress, or spend money on the dress and use the time to make more money? I don't sew as much as I used to as a teen, but I still like to can my own fruit most years (canned peaches are ambrosia, nothing at all like the bits of orange plastic in a can that come labeled "peaches"), and I put in at least a small gardnen each year.
But in addition to frugality, you've also got to have the gift of bringing in the money so that you have something to be frugal with. That's something I'm still learning!
-
Stock mama, you're right about that. I'm looking for a new job at the moment, and for the first time ever I am more interested in how much somebody is willing to pay me than in what exactly the job is or how I like my desk. I have spent a long time staying at low paying jobs because they're low stress, or convenient, etc.
I still want to think about the quality of life issues, but I'm thinking maybe I can find a fun, relaxed workplace AND make decent money. What a concept.
|
| |
| << Home |
| |
|
|
Here's one - except that she started off fairly rich. Wikipedia has more info, for what it's worth.
"FAMOUS CHEAPSKATE: Hetty Green (1834-1916)
HOW SHE DID IT: During her life, this multimillionaire businesswoman (real estate, banking, railroads) was known as the Witch of Wall Street. After her death, the Guinness Book of World Records listed her as the World's Greatest Miser. Why? Green reportedly never used hot water, never heated her home, wore the same black dress every day, lived on 15-cent pies and once spent all night searching for a lost 2-cent stamp." But she also reportedly was too cheap to set her son's broken leg properly and it had to be amputated. Maybe a tad TOO miserly.