My 87-year-old grandfather is unusually honest with me about money, mostly about the fact that he has very little. I found out last year that Grandpa has about five years left before he’s completely broke, meaning if he and my 82-year-old Gram hit their late eighties and nineties, they won’t have anything left to live on.

He doesn’t tell me because he expects my help. If anything, he’s too proud to accept it. Gram doesn’t know how close they are to broke, can’t know. Instead, Grandpa shares his financial concerns with me because we have a fairly honest and open relationship. I call at least once a week and tell them both about my work, my marriage, my life. I send them postcards when I travel. Gram sends me typed letters when she feels well enough to write.

Like a lot of senior citizens in this country, Gram and Grandpa live on an extremely fixed income. He’s a veteran and retired minister, so he gets military and church pension on top of Social Security. Gram worked intermittently for the church over the years between bouts of health trouble but never earned a pension. None of that adds up to very much end-of-life savings. Because they always lived in parsonage and never their own home, they didn’t have decades worth of income from owning real estate. They have a lot of health problems, which runs up quite a bill too, even with Medicare and Medicaid kicking in.
 

The Walmart 15 miles down the road from their rural central Florida trailer park is the closest—and by far the cheapest—market my grandparents have. They buy everything there: eggs, bread, Cool Whip, air freshener. Last time I visited, I did their shopping so Grandpa wouldn’t have to leave Gram alone at home.

For the past decade, I’ve lived in cities where local residents won’t even allow a Walmart to move in—and there are lots of good reasons why: Walmart is bad for small businesses, they’re often bad for workers. But for me, the self-righteous politicizing about Walmart stops mattering when it’s the only place the people I love can shop. After I grabbed everything on Grandpa’s short list, I paid the $20-something bill myself, knowing he could do nothing but protest later, far too late for it to matter. When I got back to their place, I slipped the money he’d given me for the trip back into his wallet, along with a $100 gift card.
 

 
I wouldn’t have mentioned it to him except that I could predict his reaction. About two weeks later, I called after 8 p.m., knowing Gram would be asleep and we could talk without her getting on the second phone to join in. “Did you find anything in your wallet recently?” I asked.

“I did!” Grandpa practically shouted. “I went back over my notes again and again, trying to figure out where it came from. I was sure I forgot to thank someone!” He’d thought it was a holiday gift of some sort, that he’d forgotten to call some poor unthanked friend.

“I’m not telling you because I want you to thank me,” I said. “I’m telling you so you don’t worry.” Obviously, I should have told him sooner, but I first had to get back home to California so we didn’t get into a ridiculous in-person back-and-forth about how he thinks I can’t afford it. We repeat ourselves a lot, him increasingly concerned that I’m not saving for old age, me reassuring him, “We have it under control. We love you. It’s our turn to help.”
 

 
My grandparents have always been extremely generous, to the point of giving away small sums of money when they don’t have it to spare. Since I was a child, they’ve sent anywhere from $25 to $75 for birthdays and holidays. Now that I’m married, my husband also gets $25—one large check covers my Christmas Eve birthday and Christmas for us both, itemized in the memo field. When I finished my master’s degree and was packing to move to Copenhagen, they sent me $300 toward a new bike. Giving is a point of pride for them and especially important to my Gram, maybe because she has no idea that the $25 she just sent to one of her upwardly mobile grandson-in-laws would have paid for her biweekly grocery bill.

A couple of years ago, they sent me $40 on my birthday. I was in northern Denmark, spending the holidays with my lovely Danish in-laws, financially comfortable retired librarians who have always lived with little need or want for anything. When I opened the envelope that contained two twenty-dollar bills, unusable overseas but yet another more generous gift than my grandparents could actually afford to send, my eyes clouded up, and I hurriedly excused myself. Behind closed doors, I cried about poverty and inequality. My in-laws probably spent $40 on chocolates to serve during the holidays that year, and I cried about the economic state of the world that suddenly felt like it was resting on my shoulders.

Even before I knew how dire their financial situation had become, that unspendable $40 came to represent everything about how my financial relationship with my grandparents would work going forward. In my most supposedly “broke” state, I always have $40. Relatively speaking, I always have $400 or even $4,000. So now, when Grandpa tells me his microwave has stopped working, I wonder how quickly I can send him a new one. When their cordless phone went on the fritz earlier this year, I sent a mid-range replacement via Amazon before Grandpa even had time to head to Walmart to price the cheap ones. If I could figure out what kind of typewriter ribbon Gram uses in her electric Smith Corona, I’d send her a case of it.

A couple of months ago, I sent Grandpa another gift card—a $500 one. Frankly, I didn’t buy one worth $1,000 because I worry about stressing all those stents supporting his heart. And, he’s a proud man, so he isn’t always thrilled that I do this stuff. He’s appreciative, sure. But he worries that I’m somehow frittering away my retirement savings on him, forgetting that I learned to live modestly from his example. This time, I gave him a heads up and called late at night to warn him that two envelopes were on the way: one, a holiday card addressed to him and Gram that they could open together, and another, a nondescript envelope addressed only to him with a note written on an index card that he could quickly toss out before she saw it. The actual gift card would fit snugly in his shirt pocket. By the time he got back from his walk to the mailbox, I knew he’d have it tucked away.

We’ve never spoken about the amount, though I might get an earful when I visit later this spring. Knowing Grandpa, he’ll make this card last the better part of this year. But I know how to check the account balance. As soon as it dips below $40—or whenever I visit next, whichever comes sooner—he’ll get another one.
 
 

Brittany Shoot’s grandparents read her articles in Time, Mental Floss, and Sojourners when she mails them a copy. // photo of Grandpa by Brittany Shoot.

“My bread secret is actually my Danish partner’s bread secret. He just knows more about good bread than I do.

He likes to tell a story about a middle school teacher who inspired him to think about bread in a different way.  One of his life philosophies was that every person should be allowed one small luxury, and no one should be allowed to question it. His luxury was to only eat fresh bread. He went to the baker every morning. 

During the three years we lived in Denmark, we spent what was probably a rather high relative percentage of our meager income on good bread and baked goods from Lagkagehuset and La Baguette. (In San Francisco, we go to Andersen Bakery, which is fine but not at all the same.) On average, we paid $6 for a hearty wheat or light sourdough loaf that would last several days. I’d pay somewhere between a dollar or two for cibatta buns, one of which was more than enough for my breakfast. A block of Danish black rye might have been cheaper, but I never really got hooked on the stuff. The not very well kept secret was that the small luxury made us happy, and that in addition to all the pickled herring pate and New Nordic foam-topped bark that the kids rave about, the Danes know their bread. Great Danes, great bread.

We have no secret to keeping the cost down, though it’s worth pointing out that if a society prioritizes something and everyone consumes it, costs may be/stay low.”— Brittany Shoot

Any and all secrets about anything/everything—but maybe not bread, I think we’re nearly there with the world’s inventory of bread secrets—should be sent to: logan@thebillfold.com 

We’ve all lived in some places. Where have you lived, Brittany Shoot? 

College Ave., Iowa City, Iowa, $225/mo.
Screw living in the dorms.  The annexed third-floor attic of an incredibly sweet elderly lady’s house was my first solo digs. Free driveway parking, free cable, giant front porch, fire escape I could sit on, and all sorts of furniture and a mini-fridge came included. My first and only hotplate, also courtesy of the owner. We shared the bathroom on the second floor, where I took baths in her claw foot tub. Sometimes she’d make too much popcorn and leave a steaming bowl on the stairs for me. I was getting ready at the kitchenette/all-purpose sink in my room when the college radio DJs announced that the World Trade Center had been hit. My landlady died that spring. I was allowed to keep living alone in her house until summer and paid my rent to the bank that handled her trust. One night I went looking for something in her pantry and found a staircase I hadn’t known existed. Her daughters gave me some of her things, including a cookbook I still have.

Ridgeland Ave., Iowa City, Iowa, $333/mo.
Weird oblong apartment in always-unlocked building near frat circle. Roach-infested dishwasher. Disgusting dingy gray carpet. Had to look up street on a map because I’d blocked it out by now. Lived with lifelong best pal Dan and eventually hostile female zinester roommate. Two bathrooms, split by gender. The female roommate was known to bring home stuff after dumpster diving like ratty area rugs that she never had professionally cleaned. Dan kept betta fish. We had a white board, where the girl left increasingly passive-aggressive notes as the year went on (never have a white board). Someone put an Aaliyah poster on the outside of the door with her eye cut out around the peephole and called it Cyborg Aaliyah. Dan and I also spent entire year “hiding” my inflatable Scream all over the apartment to scare each other.

Ellis Ave., Iowa City, Iowa, $350/mo.
Ditched the angsty girl and moved in with just Dan one block over. The building looked like summer camp bungalows, and we had some cement porch space out front. I took a solo ten-day trip to Japan that spring because I wanted to feel out of place and alone (I succeeded). Dan and I started to grow apart. He  was (suddenly?) a neat freak; I started going to the gym every day. I got new friends, and so did he. Were barely speaking to one another by the time we moved out. Kind of broke my heart. 

Iowa Ave., Iowa City, Iowa, $450/mo.
Single girl studio (except that my boyfriend always slept over or I slept there) above a fratty bar (Malone’s?). Thumping bass came through the floor, and was especially bad on weekends. A walk-in closet led back to the bathroom. Noisy pigeons roosted in the AC. Was just around the corner from Prairie Lights, excellent pizza and Indian food, and minutes from most classes and at least one of my five concurrent jobs. Dan called one day shortly before I moved away and demanded that we reconnect, so over sushi, we did. I drove out of town forever the day I took my last final.

Holton Street, Allston, Mass., $425/mo.
Three-month summer sublet in a duplex where I lived with about six other people, including twin Harvard guys who shared a futon and possibly a girlfriend. Washing machine and dryer in basement. Street parking was nice, but neighborhood was dark as hell. I was followed home one night on the walk back from work. I screamed loudly at the guy to quit following me and caught up with another lady walking home from work, who yelled right along with me. Church across the street hosted a block party. I wandered over with one of the roommates and understood nothing because everyone spoke Portuguese. Ate a lot of vanilla yogurt and berries that summer. Never fully unpacked because I knew I’d be moving again soon.

Egremont Road, Brighton, Mass., $633/mo.
The only place I stayed longer than a year up until that point, and that was only because I had an enormous room and walk-in closet for the same price as the other roommates’ much smaller rooms. Generally horrible building with occasional mice. The front door to building often broken or left open. Somewhat useless back porch/patio, from which we hurled our sofa upon moving out. Abysmal property managers I later tried to take to small claims court because they gave our apartment key to realtors, who would wander in without notice at all hours to show the place. (We eventually changed the locks and filmed the realtors trying to break in anyway.) Stayed through seven roommates in two years (if you count the one guy who never even moved in). Mostly great roommates, only one super crazy racist girl, and one guy still a close friend.

Colborne Road, Brighton, Mass., $1750/mo (total)
Hard to remember exactly what I paid here because rent included $125/mo parking space. Bargained down the price too, which seemed like a major achievement, especially against the broker’s advice. Also, there was a pool! Only stayed one year before moving abroad. Had moving drama that involved three Christian men with a church van helping us transport our stuff at the eleventh hour. My European then-boyfriend-now-husband got his travel visa waiver a month later and moved into my room. Someone should have moved out, but we all put up with the bad vibes (her, bitter; us, obnoxiously in love) for a year. The kooky landlord (who did not know my boyfriend was living there) talked down to us because we were young supposedly-single women. He once brought us a sack of cheap hairbrushes as a peace offering and then kept our security deposit because by then neither of us lived close enough to come back for it. I still think about how he stole my money, which seemed like so much back then.

Ordrupvej, Charlottenlund, Denmark, $1,500/mo. (total)
Moved in sight unseen because the boyfriend/husband went ahead of me to find us a place. Were forced to live in the shittiest building in a wealthy Copenhagen suburb because of punitive laws about what sorts of rental agreements immigrants (yes, even those married to Danish citizens) are required to have. Came awkwardly furnished with a white couch, frosted glass desk, and shitty kitchenware, especially strange given that the landlady was a professional chef. One tiny closet, narrow kitchen with a door that could not be closed, wood-paneled refrigerator, (non-working?) fireplace, shared clothesline in yard, and a small cement balcony. Called the cops twice on unemployed abusive couple across the hall that fought violently all day long. In the evenings, walked twenty minutes or biked five to townie-watch and eat soft ice in Bakken, the world’s oldest amusement park. Sometimes went to Bellevue Strand beach on weekend mornings to stare at horizon and talk about our future. Stayed two long years until a colleague living downtown moved and offered to hand off his apartment (with an immigrant-friendly lease) to us.

Møgeltøndergade, Copenhagen, Denmark, $1,000/mo. (total)
The only way to reach the main room was to walk through the bedroom. No closets at all but large private and lockable storage area in basement. We had to buy a refrigerator; in Copenhagen, everyone takes theirs when they move. (We didn’t.) Only the second place I’ve lived as adult where I could reach the on-site laundry room without going outside. Lots of light, natural and from the street lamps directly outside our windows. Had to buy blackout shades to be able to sleep. Quiet but urban neighborhood, bike parking behind a locked gate, close to the best falafel in town and three different grocery stores. Also within walking distance of excellent iced coffee, green grocers, and the best rock venue in the city. Noisy kids and nosy moms were in the courtyard 24/7. Adults ignored me; kids asked questions about our cat, which I proudly answered in my broken childish Danish. Some evenings, an ice cream truck guy would park right in front of our place and ring a giant bell to signal his arrival to the neighborhood. We paid it forward and sublet the place to another of my man’s colleagues when we moved back to the States.

Stockton Street, San Francisco, Calif., $2,195/mo. (total)
Landed our “junior bedroom” (read: glorified studio) after applying for a dozen apartments and seeing probably 30 in about four days time. One small closet. Compact dishwasher. Roof access via private covered deck, from which we look at the Bank of America building and wonder what it’s like to be a banker. Across from a major hotel with valets running around at all times of night and a cabstand, the block is well lit and unofficially patrolled by hospitality professionals. Also on top of a steep hill and tunnel, so no one comes up here unless they live here or are tourists lost between Union Square and Chinatown. Next door, the building manager (who used to manage this building too) signs for and holds packages when we’re not home. Pay additional $300/mo to park car in public garage four blocks away. The building has a crazy winding staircase out front, and tourists often stop to take photos. It isn’t technically famous, but you can catch a glimpse of it in David Fincher’s The Game if you look closely.

Brittany Shoot moved even more frequently when she was a kid, though only within a 25-mile radius back then. She always pays rent on time.

$100! It is a lot of money, and yet, it is also not a lot of money at all. Where did your last hundred bucks go, Brittany Shoot?

$62.30: Whole Foods produce run, which included: carton of apricots, bag of cherries, bundle of asparagus, two avocados, one purple onion, one lime, two vine tomatoes, two cartons of raspberries, one carton of blueberries, one carton of strawberries, two bell peppers (red, yellow), two heads of broccoli, four bananas, one sack of tiny red/purple/white potatoes, and one blueberry vegan donut. Opted for organic when possible, and almost everything was.

$18.97: Apple iTunes store, purchased new albums by Bobby Womack (The Bravest Man in the Universe, $9.99) and The Tallest Man On Earth (There’s No Leaving Now, $7.99), plus “The Break-Up Song” (re-recorded, what? $0.99) by Greg Kihn because I couldn’t get it out of my head.

$1.94: Subway. Bought iced tea for homeless (?) guy sitting out front as I passed. If you have a sign that says you are hungry, I will feed you—and especially if you sit in front of a cafe. Hey, let’s all buy and eat food in front of people who don’t have any! What? No. In this case, he just wanted a cold drink.

$30: Cab rides to/from Japandroids concert over in NOPA. $12.20 there, $11.75 back, and I believe in generous tips. Cab drivers know more about my city than I ever will, and they always drive faster than I do.

That’s actually $113.21. Wouldn’t have gone over paying for cabs if I’d forced my we-share-our-income sweetie to shell out, though I likely would have gone over on something else.

Previously: Aurora Almendral

Brittany Shoot is a journalist with some disposable income.

People are often surprised by my passionate attachment to my car, a champagne-colored, diesel-powered 1987 Mercedes Benz named Stan. Sometimes they’re surprised because I’m a girl (and they are sexist), or because I’m a vocal environmentalist. But mostly it’s because I live in downtown San Francisco. The fact that I live within walking distance of (most) everything awesome and still own a car confounds nearly everyone I meet.

I’d dreamed of a car like Stan most of my life, and five years ago, I found him in a Boston suburb for $3,000, cash. A family was unloading their patriarch’s estate, and I jumped at the chance to care for his ride and give it his name in memoriam. Since then, Stan the Mercedes has been up and down the eastern seaboard half a dozen times, locked in storage for several years while I lived overseas, and driven from Boston out to California last fall only days after he was dusted off. He’s a hell of a trusty ride.

When I moved to California, I made my personal journey of westward expansion in my favorite car—and when I arrived, I wanted to keep my wheels. I did, and that’s why, even in a neighborhood with a plethora of car-sharing options around, I have come to proudly defend the cost of car ownership. 

Since I bought Stan outright, my regular costs are cheap insurance and exorbitant parking. I have the cheapest insurance, ever. Because my father was an Army reservist, I have what is possibly the most coveted car insurance in the country. United Services Automobile Association (USAA) insurance coverage (plus myriad financial services) is only available to individuals and the families of those who have served in any branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. With every bill, I think, Thank you for your service. (Actually, no, I’m horrible and just think, Thank you for the cheapest insurance, ever.) I pay a mere $42 a month ($504 a year) for coverage. This does not include collision protection, because, though Stan may be a priceless treasure to me, he isn’t worth anything if he gets smashed up.

My cheap insurance is balanced out, however, by my massive parking costs. I pay $300 a month ($3,600 a year) to park Stan in a nearby public garage. Even if I could outsmart the hotel valets in my neighborhood and score a street spot, street parking rules around here mandate that you move your car every 72 hours. I decided to buy my way out of that inconvenience, and so, every time I want to drive somewhere, I make the 10-15 minute hike straight up Nob Hill, where I’m sure Stan is waiting for me, ticket-free.

To own my car, that’s $4,104 annually before fuel and maintenance gets factored in.

There is a Zipcar hub with 16 spots in the garage where I park Stan, and a few times I’ve wondered if that would be a smarter option. Here are the Zipcar rates for San Francisco:

The cars available under the Occasional Driving Plan start at $78/day for full-day rentals (weekends rates, including Fridays, jump to $94/day). There’s also a $60 annual fee and $25 application fee to consider. At those rates, it would cost $1,957 to take a Zipcar out for a full day twice a month— $2,341 if those days were both weekend days. It’s up to $3,829 if I rent a Zipcar for a full day once a week—$4,597 if my daily car day is a weekend day. These prices include some fuel (the first 180 miles per trip) and maintenance.

But here’s where it gets tricky. When I do take my car out, I take it out. When my best pals from Boston came out to visit last month, we took the car out several days in a row, driving down Highway 1 to Big Sur, over the Golden Gate to Muir Woods, and crossing the Bay Bridge to hit up the best eateries in Oakland. For those three days (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday), we’d have paid $252 for all-day Zipcar rental, plus extra for mileage if we did more than 180 miles/day. On the day we drove to Big Sur, which is 300 miles roundtrip with absolutely no detours, we would have paid an extra $54. That one-day Zipcar rental would have cost at least $148, or more than a third of the $342 monthly for Stan.

And that’s when I stopped doing the math. I take my car out at least a few times a month. This weekend I put 350 miles on it. And maybe I don’t actually come out ahead of my car-sharing friends, but that’s okay. By keeping my car, I get all the perks of private ownership—my personal assortment of maps and supplies in the backseat, trunk, and glove box; my own music selection and radio pre-sets—and never have to wonder if a car will be available or how much I’ll spend to borrow it. And of course, most of my car-less friends don’t hesitate to hit me up for a ride. Not that I mind. In fact, I kind of love it.

Brittany Shoot wants to join a car club. She never tweets and drives.