THE VALUE OF A DOLLAR

I am certain that when my sisters read the headline “The Value of A Dollar,” they will smile and be reminded of our father. When we were growing up, our dad used every available opportunity to teach us a lesson in the “value of a dollar.” The more he used that phrase, the more we rolled our eyes. 

The example he used that I remember most was the value in seeing a movie in the theater versus the value of watching a Blockbuster rental at home. 

Our dad explained how the exorbitant cost of the theater tickets plus the criminal cost of popcorn and drinks far outweighed the cost of a Blockbuster rental and the cost of a Dominos delivery of two pizzas. Back then, I very much understood that lesson on cost. But it’s taken me a while to understand the value part.

I can’t remember a single movie we ever saw as a family in a theater. 

I can, however, remember an afternoon when Bridget and I rode our bikes around the neighborhood and decided to venture out to the nearest Blockbuster video store. We spoke to the manager, explaining we had no money, no Blockbuster card, and no identification, but we were interested in renting a movie. After we gave him our name and address, the kind gentlemen looked up our account, saw that we always returned our rentals on time and were always so kind to rewind, and let us rent a movie! With no money, no card, no ID! We fooled the manager! We beat the system! We biked home with a little extra gas in our tanks, if you know what I mean.

I remember many nights where we sat around the kitchen table, all five of us, enjoying our Dominos pizzas and the special 2 liter sodas Dad picked up earlier that week at the grocery store for this very occasion. I very much remember the many meaningful conversations we had as a family.

After dinner, I remember the three of us jockeying for our positions around the family room TV, considering which spots would spare us from making eye contact with our parents during “romanic” movie scenes (“Big” with Tom Hanks nearly KILLED me). I would curl up in the side chair diagonal from the TV, resting my head on one arm and my feet on the other, and Bridget and Caitlyn would lie on the floor in front of the TV, cozying up in their sleeping bags, and my parents would take their VIP seats on the couch behind us.

Those experiences are invaluable. Off the charts invaluable.

For the past six months, whenever we have paid for anything (hotels, grocery bills, walking tours, metro cards), the girls have enjoyed using our currency converter apps to understand how much each thing costs. They compare it to US dollars, which helps them contextualize the value of each thing. 

After enjoying a few Singapore Slings at the Raffles Hotel, the bill arrived and the girls calculated how much we spent on a couple rounds of fruity beverages. They were AGHAST! The bill for those drinks was equivalent to our 3-night accommodation at our homestay in Tam Coc, Vietnam. Our host family in Vietnam would have been able to feed their multi-generational family for weeks with the money we had just spent on a couple of drinks. 

That night, our family had a long conversation about cost vs. value. We talked about the cost of Benetton versus J.C. Penney and Lululemon versus Old Navy. We talked about the cost of a dinner at a fancy restaurant and the value of a home cooked meal. We talked about what a dollar means to someone in Siem Reap, Cambodia versus someone in Darien, Connecticut.

The conversation made me quite emotional. I am grateful for the values my parents instilled in me and the memories our family created, and I am inspired by the ways in which my children are discovering their values as they see the world around them. 

And Dad, I’m happy to report that I think I finally understand “the value of a dollar.”