- Rebekah Sanderlin's father lived frugally, saving money and working hard his entire life.
- He retired early at age 50 but lived in a "monastic frugality prison" before dying from cancer at 58.
My father was always a thrifty guy, and he tried — mostly unsuccessfully — to pass that trait along to me and my siblings.
When I was six years old, he gave me a small lidded basket to save the money I earned from the Tooth Fairy and doing chores. When my basket got full, he took a very disappointed me to the bank to put it all in a savings account. According to a story my parents loved to tell, I exclaimed, "But I've already saved it! Now it's time to spend it!"
My dad lived a frugal lifestyle
Working hard and saving money, my three siblings and I were told, was the only pathway to real happiness, and my parents practiced what they preached. My dad worked for the same sausage company for nearly his entire life; he started working there at 15, sweeping the parking lot, and he stayed until he was in charge of all the plant's operations by his early 30s.
When the company was sold and his location was shuttered, my father — by then divorced from my mother — moved six hours away to run the new location. He could more easily imagine himself starting over alone in a new town than starting over with a new company.
He visited my siblings and me every other weekend. He was a master of finding frugal ways to have fun and always generously gave his time and attention.
A typical Saturday would include lunch at Sam's Club, where he encouraged us to eat all the free samples. Then we might take a stale loaf of bread to feed the ducks at the park or spend an entire afternoon riding the elevators in the buildings downtown. We went to airshows and free concerts and loaded up on cheap candy at the dollar store before taking our seats in a 99-cent movie theater.
He couldn't wait to retire and actually start living
My father had many penny-pinching ways. He price-shopped every purchase and always bought store-brand products which, after decades in the food industry, he preached were the same quality and often made by the same manufacturers as name brands. He never once bought a new car — only used ones — and he drove them until they no longer made financial sense.
When the headliner in one sagged so badly it blocked the rearview mirror, his solution was dozens of colorful thumbtacks pushed haphazardly into the ceiling of his sedan. I used to move them around while he drove, like his car was a mobile Lite Brite.
It would've been a perfectly fine solution for a teenager, college student, or someone struggling to make ends meet, but my father was the top boss at the largest employer in his town. He could've afforded a new — or at least newer — car, and even would've been able to pay cash for it.
But his plan had always been to retire early. He couldn't wait to wrap up his working life. To him, work was something you did until you could afford to quit and actually start living. Every paycheck got him closer to that goal.
His life became tiny
At age 45, he got laid off. He hadn't planned to retire that early and he tried to find another job, but after several years of searching and a few short stints at jobs he hated, he looked at his accounts and realized he didn't really have to work anymore. At 50, he could retire early, and have plenty of time to do whatever he wanted.
The problem was that he had never figured out what he actually wanted to do with his time. Whole weeks would go by without him doing anything at all. He had never developed the kinds of interests that can sustain people once they stop working.
Moreover, his retirement budget was so tight that he couldn't afford to explore anything new; he once told me that all his monthly expenses including housing, utilities, vehicle, food, and everything else, were just $900. His parents had both lived into their 90s and, though he had quite a bit saved for retirement, he worried that his savings might not last his entire life.
He wouldn't even go out to eat with my siblings and me because restaurants simply weren't in his budget. We would have paid for him, of course, but he was too proud to let us do that. My father's life became tiny — a monastic frugality prison.
Most critically, his budget left no room for health insurance. This was prior to the Affordable Care Act, and he found out that buying health insurance would have cost him more than $1,200 a month, an expense he felt he couldn't justify. He reasoned that his health would likely be fine until he was old enough for Medicare, but he was wrong.
A cancer diagnosis changed his money outlook
He lived that way for eight years, until January 2008. Although he had lost a lot of weight and complained of a sore throat for months, he refused to see a doctor because he was worried about the expense.
After my siblings and I convinced him to see a family friend who was a doctor, we finally found out what was going on: at age 58 my father was diagnosed with Stage 4 esophageal cancer and told he had six months to live. When the reality of his diagnosis settled in, it also hit him that he would never get to spend the money he had been saving since he was 15.
One day, he wrote each of his children a check for $10,000, saying he wanted us to go shopping and buy ourselves something expensive, something he had never done for himself. He joked that he'd already saved the money and now it was our turn to spend it, laughing as he turned that old family story on its head.
By then he was too sick to go shopping with us, but we each showed off our purchases to him. I was pregnant at the time and bought myself an expensive designer diaper bag. I also bought a pair of real diamond earrings, and his eyes lit up as he watched me slide them into my ears.
It turned out that the same man who had thumbtacked up the headliner in his car really enjoyed being the kind of father who could buy his daughter diamond earrings and a designer diaper bag.
He died not long after that, exactly six months after being diagnosed.
I don't think anyone should ever fully stop working
Nowadays, when I hear people say they want to retire early, I feel like I'm watching a teenager in a horror movie go alone into the basement. With all the ways that exist for people to engage with work and monetize their passions, I don't think anyone should ever fully stop working, or at least doing things that bring them purpose.
Stop working a job you hate? Absolutely. Spend more time on pursuits that don't pay very well, if at all? Hello, I'm a writer! Volunteer in your community or be a caregiver for family members or friends? Please, do that. But fully retire with no plan to engage in activities that provide a sense of purpose? I just don't see how that is good for anyone.
I did inherit a few of my dad's frugal ways, though. I always price-shop my purchases and fill my grocery cart with store-brand food. That old designer diaper bag now serves as my laptop bag, a reminder of everything I learned from my dad.
And thanks to his lessons, I have a financial plan and solid savings. I plan to slow down as I age, but I don't plan on ever retiring. I'll write as long as I'm able, volunteer as long as I'm needed, and do it all wearing the diamond studs I got from my father.
Rebekah Sanderlin is a freelance journalist, copywriter, screenwriter, and marketing strategist.
If you retired early and would like to share your story, email Jane Zhang at janezhang@businessinsider.com.