The Repugnant Reign of Penny Pinching Pete
A penny pinching patriarch’s minimalist mission
Story written and narrated by: Glenn Vanderkloet
“Hazlehurst” - Pale Cricket
“Theme Idea 1” - Pale Cricket
“‘Til Stone Day Comes” - The Skiffle Players
The Repugnant Reign of Penny Pinching Pete
My father was born in Holland in 1946 and came to Canada with his parents and siblings when he was five. They were looking for an easier life on the North American continent but I’m sure the decision to leave family behind in Europe was anything but easy. In addition to the clothes on their backs and a few dollars in their pockets, they brought with them some of their more entrenched Dutch customs. For instance, once they settled on their new Canadian plot of land, my grandfather went to work setting up a hobby farm which is common practice in Holland. He built a couple small sheds where he bred and raised chickens, rabbits, and goats among other small to mid sized animals. They also became members of the local Christian Reformed Church which has its roots in the Dutch Reformed Church of the Netherlands. Furthermore, my grandparents kept their kitchen stocked with traditional Dutch foods like Edam cheese, chocolate sprinkles or hagelslag, and plenty of Fritessaus which is the Dutch version of mayonnaise.
As time wore on, some of the Dutch influence began to get lost in the cultural milieu of their adopted homeland. This was especially true for my dad and his siblings as they were attending Canadian schools and befriending Canadian children. Besides my dad’s native tongue of Frisian taking a backseat to English, he also became enamoured with North American sports like hockey and baseball and took an interest in American and Canadian history, geography, music, and literature. By the time he met my mom in his early twenties, although having been born across the pond, dad was nearly as Canadian as any other beer-swilling, Timbit eating, hoser and his Dutch attributes had faded significantly. There was one exception though. The lone Dutch trait he held onto tighter than a Hollander clutching a Euro was his frugality. My dad was one of the cheapest individuals I’ve ever encountered and having experienced his thriftiness firsthand, I can say that there were both positive and negative aspects of this.
The first negative that jumps to mind, and it’s not lost on me that this was undoubtedly a first world problem, was the lunch I took to school. While other kids were removing Dunkaroos, Fruit Roll-Ups, and Lunchables from their expensive cooler bags, I was pulling out a soggy cheese whiz sandwich that had been leaked on by my faulty thermos from a plastic bag that had clearly seen better days. Dessert was a few Nilla Wafers that tasted like drywall but thankfully, there was usually enough powdered grape drink left in my leaky thermos to wash them down without choking. Elementary school lunch break had a way of dividing the class and the classes.
Another example of my dad’s stinginess was his stubborn refusal to buy a quality washer or dryer. Instead of biting the bullet and buying a new set that would last, he would scour the classified ads for the cheapest used model he could find when one or the other would break down. Once he found a suitably priced unit, usually in the 50 dollar range, he would round up my brother and I to go pick up our dilapidated, not so gently used appliance. After arriving back home, the three of us would awkwardly carry the machine down a lengthy flight of narrow stairs into our water damaged basement and hook it up, hoping it would last longer than the previous one. Often, shortly after replacing a broken down unit, the one that had been working would fail and the cycle of switching out these dreadful machines would start again. I still have unpleasant dreams of being pinned against a wall by a washing machine or of my snow covered boots losing their grip on our vinyl stair treads while carrying one of these barely functional beasts. I can also still hear my brother’s deranged tone echo through my head as he would vociferate at my dad to “buy a fucking washer that works.”
There were plenty of other examples too, some more reasonable than others. He was steadfast about keeping our electric baseboard heaters at 17 celsius or 63 fahrenheit in the winter and when summer rolled around he’d remind us, lest we get too greedy, that air conditioning was for the elite class. Other common refrains from dad were, “finish every crumb on your plate,” “turn the light off when you leave a room,” and “shut the goddamn door, I’m not paying to heat the outdoors.”
In the last seven or eight years of my dad’s life, he shifted from run of the mill cheapskate to someone unhealthily fixated on his and our family’s financial health. Largely due to the advent of high speed internet and subsequent conspiracy websites, he became obsessed with what was in his mind, the inevitable collapse of the global financial system. He invested in gold coins, stored large sums of money in the freezer, filled our cellar with non-perishable food items, and kept BNN Bloomberg on a loop on the family TV.
To my father’s credit, he was well versed in money matters but he also obsessed over finances to the point where he neglected other, more important issues. This was never more apparent to me than a few weeks before he died in April, 2010. It was tax season and dad was always quick to give me advice on how much money I should contribute to my retirement account that he insisted I open. In fact, he would accompany me to the bank most years and make sure that I invested as much as I could afford to, thereby ensuring the most lucrative tax refund possible. I think he had some control issues as well but that’s a story for another day. With dad in hospice care that April, he couldn’t accompany me and I honestly didn’t think my financial situation was top of mind for him. I went to the bank alone and contributed what I thought was an appropriate amount to my retirement savings fund. When I returned home later that day, I called dad to first and foremost ask about his health, but secondarily, to discuss my investment appointment. When I told him how much I had contributed, he began to berate me from his hospital bed for not investing enough. He was literally on his death bed scolding me about a relatively inconsequential financial decision. I was perplexed to say the least. After hanging up on him in anger, I began to think about what had just transpired. After calming down a bit, I realized the monumental stress he must be under. The guy was dying and somehow, he still had the presence of mind to concern himself with my financial well being. In addition to keeping watch over my economic interests, he had my mom bring in their financial records and he spent his last days of consciousness reconciling their accounts so mom didn’t have a mess to clean up after he passed. I’ll find out one day but right now, it’s hard to imagine being able to concentrate on anything other than death when your body is shutting down. Kudos to him for that act of selflessness, even though he should’ve been focused on his own battle.
Even though dad’s fixation on scrimping and saving was extremely annoying and sometimes embarrassing in the moment, I do believe it has been beneficial to me in the long term. Through years of living with a man who chose the value brand over the name brand and who would opt for the motor inn over the Marriott, I’ve learned to place more significance on things that don’t cost money opposed to those that do. I hate to sound like some cliched financial advisor on Sunday afternoon radio but I can’t help it. Spending buckets of money on shit I don’t need does not make me happier thanks to my dad. I drive a small, compact car, drink instant coffee, wear shoes until they fall apart, and am more than fine with pulling up a plastic lawn chair to my TV tray at dinner time. On top of not having much desire to spend money, I also hate giving manipulative marketers the satisfaction of baiting me into buying their dubious products.
I’m sure there are people listening to this and rolling their eyes at my self congratulatory tone and I’m sorry if I come off like that but please believe me when I say I’m not patting myself on the back. I’m simply a product of the environment I grew up in. An environment where you didn’t waste anything, except the health of your back and your mental state while trying to save a buck. I like to think the next generation evolves just a little bit though. In addition to knowing how to conserve money, I also have the sense to go to a department store instead of meeting somebody from Craigslist in a parking lot for my next washing machine and I won’t hesitate to crank the heat to a relatively balmy 20 Celsius or 68 Fahrenheit on a cold winter’s night. Thanks pops for drilling into me what's truly important in life, even if your teaching methods were a bit unhinged. And if you are somewhere watching over me, and your obsessive nature would suggest you are, you may want to avert your gaze from my retirement fund. I’ve let that one slide a bit.