The Penny Pinchers Club

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  “Kat?” Sherise called. “Could you come over here for a minute?”

  Sherise and Velma were at Griff’s desk, envelopes divided into little white stacks. Velma was at the computer, squinting.

  “As a former bookkeeper, Velma doesn’t have a problem with opening your bills, but I do. I’d feel more comfortable if you did it and called off the amounts.”

  Thankfully, one of these Penny Pinchers could see reason.

  “Anyway,” she said,“it’s better if we bring you into the loop considering it was being out of the loop that got you into this mess, right?”

  “Looks like about $25,000 of the $30,000 is gone.” Velma stroked her chin and clicked downward. “The question is, where did it go?”

  What $25,000 and what $30,000? And what did she mean by gone?

  Sherise handed me a New Jersey Power and Light envelope. “Would you do the honors?”

  I slid my finger under the flap and out fell an electric bill for $135. Not bad considering we’d had the air conditioner going into September. I called out the amount and Sherise wrote it down on a white tablet.

  Next was the phone bill—$63! Pretty good, though the bill for our cell service—a whopping $212—was a stunner. Cable also was not so great. Internet plus HBO at $125 a month was hardly the deal the cable company claimed on TV and what was with all these other charges, the list of taxes and fees?

  “I just got rid of HBO,” I told them.

  Sherise did not seem that impressed. All she said was, “Hmmm. How about that mortgage?”

  I found the most recent bill—$1,548—and plotzed. Didn’t it used to be much lower? And what was this other one from the bank? A $30,000 line of credit. But . . . this didn’t make sense. We’d spent about $6,000 to redo the basement. So how come we were in hock for $25,000?

  And why was our monthly payment for that $250?

  “Ahh,” Velma said, taking the credit card statement out of my hand. “That’s what I was looking for.”

  “I’m confused.” All these bills. It was overwhelming. “The line of credit was to pay to redo our basement for about six grand. So . . .”

  “He’s been using it to pay off credit card debt.” Velma compared it to what was on her computer screen. “Smart idea since you can write off the interest on your home equity. Problem is, he’s running out of funds.”

  “I can’t find a pay stub for him,” Sherise said. “Do you happen to know what your take-home is and your husband’s, too?”

  I told her I took home an average of $2,000 a month but I had no idea about Griff. It was horribly embarrassing to realize that I hadn’t a clue about how much money my own husband earned, but there you had it. I was oblivious.

  “That’s okay,” Velma said without the slightest tone of disparagement. “I can figure it out from his deposits. Ballpark, I’d say he’s taking home about a thousand a week.”

  “Okay, so we’re talking about $6,000 to play with per month.” Sherise tapped her pencil on the tablet thoughtfully. “Subtract from that your monthly bills, including my guesstimate on property taxes and insurance, and we’re down to about $625 a week for food and entertainment.”

  “Hey,” I said, brightening. “That’s not too bad at all.”

  Velma held up a finger. “Except, you’ve got a line of credit to pay off.”

  “The least of her problems,” Sherise added. “I didn’t include your credit card debt.” Sherise handed me the latest Visa bill. “You might want to sit down.”

  The Visa envelope lay in my hand, a white sliver of doom. Again, I felt the familiar sickness, the dread of bad news and the onslaught of worry and self-loathing. It was like a bad report card for adults. “I can’t.”

  “You gotta,” Velma said. “Be strong.”

  “We’ve all been through it, Kat.” Sherise smiled. “We’re here with you.”

  “Even Velma?” The woman knit sweaters for the homeless out of recycled yarn, for heaven’s sake. Hardly the portrait of a profligate spender.

  Velma exchanged questioning glances with Sherise. “For your information, one time my bills at home piled up so high, I figured the town would never miss it if I borrowed four thousand to cover them.”

  What?

  “Velma used to be treasurer for Breyers Falls in the northern part of the state,” Sherise explained. “She didn’t think of it as embezzlement. . . .”

  “I was going to pay it back,” she interjected.

  “Velma?” Sherise glared. “Remember what the judge said about denial.”

  “All right, all right. I know now it was a crime, though back then, from my perspective, it was more like borrowing.”

  Sherise said, “This is why the judge suggested Velma try our group, so she’d learn money-management skills after her release from the hoosegow.”

  “One year, six months suspended for four measly thousand dollars. The judge way overreacted.” Velma waved to the envelope in my hand. “Now, let’s see what Visa sent you.”

  Putting aside my rational concern that a convicted felon was prying into our private finances, I ripped open the envelope, unfolded the bill, took a peek, and immediately suffered what doctors would refer to as a minor cardiological incident.

  Not only had we almost reached the limit of our $10,000 credit line, if my calculations were correct, thanks to the anniversary party last month, we’d exceeded it.

  So, that explained the call Griff got from the Visa people the day of the party. It wasn’t a randomly generated computer thing, after all. Griff hid the truth to protect me that night because of the party. Oh, god. We were in so much trouble.

  I must have let out some sort of yelp because Libby rushed down the stairs and asked, “What happened?” while Sherise came around the desk and took me by the shoulders, moving me over to the old couch covered with dog hair. “Good girl. You did it. You faced your demon.”

  “Yes, but . . .” Numbers began to swirl before my eyes. “We have so many bills. So much debt. Nearly $40,000. How will we ever get it paid off? How will we ever send Laura to college or save for our retirement or . . . a divorce?”

  Libby plunked herself on a step and said, “Credit card bill?”

  Velma said, “Yup. It put her over the edge.”

  “I knew it’d be bad.” Libby clasped her hands around her knees. “She’s not used to dealing with bad news about money. Griff’s spared her.”

  Libby was right. This was exactly the kind of bad news that made me ill and it was hitting me head-on, as if I’d swerved into the path of a Mack truck carrying a load of debt. Moreover, if I understood Toni correctly (please, may I have misheard), were Griff and I to divorce, then not only would our assets be divided, such as they were, but also our debt. Which meant that I, on my own little lonesome, would be responsible for paying off . . . $18,500!

  I seriously questioned whether I was in the initial stages of a heart attack. How could Griff—responsible, prudent Griff—have allowed us to get so far in the hole? This couldn’t have been all my fault, right? Not all.

  My cheek stung and, belatedly, I realized I’d been gently slapped.

  “Snap out of it.” Sherise gave me a tiny shake. “This is not nearly as bad as you’re making it out to be, Kat. You’ve got to separate your emotions from your figures.”

  Velma said,“It’s totally doable. You can save some money and pay down this debt in no time if you work at it.”

  “Look. You two are lucky,” Sherise said. “You both have jobs and health insurance. That’s better than a ton of people these days.”

  The downstairs printer warmed up and spit out a sheet of numbers. “I’m printing you a rough budget.” Velma carried over the paper. “The way I see it, cut out $200 a week from your expenses and you’ll save $6,400 by June. That would take hardly any effort. If you really want to go the distance, though, try to save $500 a week and you’ll reach your goal: $16,000 by the time your daughter graduates.”

  She held the paper for me to read. It
was all there in orderly columns. Income on one side, expenses on the other. Short column for the income, long column for the expenses. “As you can see, there’s a lot of fat there to cut in heating, electricity, cable, and car payments. It’s simply a matter of being mindful. And, um, perhaps doing away with . . .”

  She turned to Libby, who said, “Don’t tell me. I know what’s coming.”

  “Let Libby go and you’ll save $400 a month. That’s almost your home equity payment right there.”

  “We domestic workers are always the first to get cut in an economy like this. So unfair.”

  I began to feel better. Not about having to fire Libby; that was dreadful since Libby was more than a housekeeper. She was a friend. “Sorry.” I held up Velma’s budget and shrugged.

  She shrugged back. “It is what it is. You’ll get tired of scrubbing toilets soon enough.”

  No, I felt better because those numbers that had so frightened me before weren’t so bad once you had them all on paper. Yes, it was daunting. Frightening, even, to see our bills were so high. But they were just these little black and white symbols. That was all.

  They don’t control me; I control them.

  “Steve will help you get your energy costs down,” Sherise went on. “He’s good at that stuff. And take a couple of shopping trips with Opal and she’ll show you how to live on dollars a day. That woman feeds and clothes a family of four on what you, alone, take home, Kat. Like I said, count yourself lucky.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered, clutching the sheet as if it were the answer to all my prayers. “Thank you, thank you.”

  Velma took a bite out of her coffee cake and, wiping her lips, said, “I think our work here is done.”

  Heavy footsteps tromped down the stairs. Steve stopped at the step above Libby and said, “By any chance, Kat, does your husband drive an old gold Honda Civic?”

  Libby said, “Uh-oh.”

  Holy crap! Griff was home . . . and the house was jam-packed with Penny Pinchers.

  “You want to tell him now?” Sherise asked. “I mean, about your budget.”

  I didn’t know. Running around the room, collecting the bills and rearranging them into the disorderly mess they’d been before, shutting down the computer, my one concern was that line in his email—that he already worried I was suspicious. If he saw me down here going through his stuff, he might admit to having an affair.

  I couldn’t take him leaving now. I had to follow Toni’s advice and use this period of limbo to prepare. “Let’s wait,” I said.

  Sherise nodded. “Okay. Then what do we tell him?”

  “I have a few choice words,” Velma said.

  “We don’t have to tell him anything.” I crumpled up the napkin and tossed it in the trash. “My mother always did say a hint of mystery sparks up a marriage.”

  Though, when I stopped to think of my parents and their regular six P.M. dinners followed by the nightly ritual of the news, Jeopardy!, and Dancing with the Stars, my mother’s lofty advice seemed downright ludicrous.

  Unless Opal said something to him first. . . . Eeep!

  Rushing up, I found Griff in the kitchen picking at what was left of Velma’s coffee cake. Steve and Opal were nowhere to be found.

  “There you are,” he said jovially, coming over to kiss me on the cheek like he always did. “I had a free afternoon, so I thought I’d come home for lunch.” He kissed me again, this time on the lips . . . and with meaning. It wasn’t lunch he’d come home for, that was for sure.

  Over his shoulder, I caught sight of Velma shaking her head.

  “You have friends over?” he asked, nodding at Libby.

  “Uh-huh. Griff, this is Sherise and this is Velma.”

  Sherise and Velma nodded as politely as they could manage.

  “Nice to meet you,” Griff said, squinting, as if trying to place them. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard Kat mention you before.”

  “That’s because we just met,” Velma said. “Well, we better get going. I assume Opal’s waiting in the van.”

  “I think she might be,” he said, his usual helpful self. “Tall woman. Purple kerchief . . .”

  “Behind the wheel of the van?” Velma shot him a finger. “You should be a detective, Mister. Bye, Kat.”

  I waved good-bye to them and thanked them for coming over and . . . for everything. I wanted to tell them they were angels, that they had single-handedly endowed me with the courage to face my fears, but Griff was there, so I couldn’t. Somehow, though, they knew. I could read it in their smile and warm handshakes.

  When they were gone, Griff shoved his hands in his pockets and said, “They seem nice.” It was killing him, absolutely killing him that I refused to provide any context. “A kind of diverse bunch. Friends of Libby’s, are they?”

  “You got it.”

  Then I turned and went upstairs to the bathroom where, for the first time since I’d found the emails, I sat on the edge of the tub and had a good laugh.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  After the Penny Pincher audit, I was CHARGED!

  I was as motivated as a wayward stripper who’d seen the light at her first tent revival and was ready to put on her Sunday go-to-meeting dress to proclaim the Good News! I could not wait to begin my new journey down the path of frugality.

  Right off the top, I conceived of a dozen easy changes that would bring me closer to saving $500 a week. Canceling the cable completely—not just HBO—was a no-brainer. Laura might balk about missing South Park and Griff would be bummed that he couldn’t watch basketball this winter, but I was confident that he, being an intellectual academician and nature lover, would applaud the move. Honestly, did we really need to pay to watch British Chihuahuas with bed-wetting disorders on Animal Planet or sub-IQ humans crash motorbikes on truTV?

  As for the Internet,Velma—who turned out to be a bit of a cyber geek—suggested approaching the neighbors and sharing a wireless connection. BRILLIANT IDEA! Why hadn’t I thought of that? Or Griff? It was so stupid for each of us to be paying these exorbitant bills when wireless technology made communal Internet a snap.

  Then there was my Lexus. It would have to go since those $250-a-month car payments were killing us. Better to buy an Elantra or a used diesel car I could have retrofitted to burn vegetable oil from McDonald’s. (Libby suggested I hit up Wade, who apparently had ties to the underground “Mazola cartel.”)

  Netflix was gone, to be substituted with movies rented from the library. Ditto for my cell phone. Yes, one might argue cell phones were necessities now that all the old pay phones had been ripped out and, therefore, if I got a flat in the backwoods of New Jersey or an inner-city neighborhood harboring . . .

  Okay. I’d keep the cell phone, I decided, but the landline was outta there. An instant savings of at least $600 a year.

  That said, there were a few big-ticket items I unfortunately had to buy. There were the glass containers Opal recommended, along with a pressure cooker so it wouldn’t take days to cook the hard dried beans I’d keep in them. Since I had a job that required me to be out of the house, she also suggested a bread maker in which I would mix the ingredients, set the timer, and come home to freshly baked bread. Just like food that came in boxes, Opal did not trust food that came in chemically manufactured plastic bags. And that included bread.

  Then, of course, there was the deep freeze. Steve said he could get a sixteen-cubic-foot freezer off Craigslist for under $100. I had no clue what I’d do with a freezer that large until Opal explained I could use it to store tomato sauce and vegetables freshly picked from my garden. Which might have made sense if I’d had a garden. Since my patch of a few withered tomato plants could hardly qualify, Opal said she’d help me with that, too.

  Unfortunately, I’d forgotten to take into account how Griff would react to all this.

  Two weeks after my Penny Pinchers audit, he strolled into the kitchen earlier than I expected and nearly tripped over the bread maker box. “What is
all this stuff? And why is there a ‘For Sale’ sign on the Lexus?”

  Uh-oh. I hadn’t planned on telling him about my budget so soon, not until I got my first check from the work I did for Madeleine Granville. Then I planned on sitting him down and laying out my plans to start my own interior design business, gradually building up enough clients so I could finally tell Chloe to kiss off. I’d also use Madeleine’s check as an excuse to explain why I felt it necessary to open my own bank account that, unbeknownst to him, would be used to not only finance my business, but also my life after he asked for a divorce.

  “Because . . . ,” I began, stalling, remembering there is no more effective lie than the truth, “I’m going on a penny-pinching program.”

  “Are you now?” His lips twitched. “And how, pray tell, does a penny-pinching program necessitate you cleaning out half of Bed, Bath and Beyond?” He eyed the brand-new Cuisinart pressure cooker.

  “You gotta spend money to make money.”

  “Oh, I think you got that down—the spending part, that is. The question is . . . how does that make money?”

  He wasn’t taking me seriously. Just like Viv, who’d burst out laughing when I proudly announced that we would live on $200 a week, he thought this was just another one of my phases. Like the time I wanted to raise llamas and sell the wool.

  “I know you don’t believe me, Griff. But I mean it.” I plunked a bunch of dried spaghetti into a glass jar, getting so aggravated by his persistent smile that I started talking off the top of my head. “I’ve got a plan for us to start saving $500 a week so that by the time Laura graduates, I’ll have $16,000 of my own.”

  Griff quit smiling. “Why would you need $16,000? And why by Laura’s graduation?”

  Shoot. I’d practically let it out of the bag. He cocked his head and was about to ask me something else when I jumped in and said, “For Laura’s college, of course. You know we have absolutely nothing set aside for her.”

  “You don’t!”

  Laura was at the kitchen door holding a venti iced mocha, her lips wearing a whipped cream mustache of shock. “You guys don’t have a college savings plan for me?”