19 Jun 2026
As I celebrated Father’s Day this year, I remembered my father. It was 16 years ago that he passed away, and I have not forgotten him one single day.
One thing that stands out in my memories of him is his money. He did not have a lot of money, but the money he did have was somewhat of an obsession with him. When he got his monthly bank statements, he spent the whole day going through them line by line.
As he reviewed his statements and deposits, he remembered each deposit and its source. Sitting with him one time as he was going over his bank statements, I asked him how he could remember each deposit and where it came from.
Continuing to look at his bank statement, he said, “Son, it’s more important to know where your money is coming from then where it’s going.”
I’m not sure I understood exactly at the time what he was talking about.
He had a construction business and kept track of all the money coming in from the sale of a house. It was important to him to review his money every month.
Today, we can check our bank balances online every day. Back in his day, he didn’t have the Internet like we have today. I like to think of what it would be like if he could check his bank balances every day. I think he would really have enjoyed that.
Thinking of his connection with money, I could not help but think about going out to lunch with him. Often, several of his friends would come out together, and we would have lunch at a restaurant. I did not catch this at first, but it did not take me long to see what was happening.
Everybody paid their own bill, but Dad picked up mine, which I was thankful for. He told everybody that he would take care of the tip, and nobody needed to worry about it. I noticed that he laid down the tip. I did not quite understand what it was, but as he walked away, I looked back and saw that his tip was a quarter. Sometimes it was only a nickel, but this time he was being very generous.
As we were walking out, some of the guys would say they had to go to the bathroom and would catch up with us in the parking lot. I never assumed what they were doing, but later I realized they were going back to the table and leaving generous tips for the waitress. It’s a good thing good old dad didn’t know anything about that.
Tipping was not his favorite thing to do, as you can imagine.
Compared to my father, my mother was not frugal at all. Believe me, Dad had to watch over her with a very sharp eye so she would not spend too much of his money, which taught me the value of careful spending and the importance of financial discipline in family life.
This was particularly true around Christmas time. Mother wanted to buy all of us kids a lot of presents for Christmas. Dad, on the other side of the Christmas tree, believed that each should only get one Christmas present. And he was unanimous in that. It was one of the few things they really disagreed. Dad was not going to spend a lot of money on Christmas.
When it came to Christmas trees, he was just as frugal. I remember that several years ago, the week before Christmas, we went driving around the countryside looking for a Christmas tree. I did not understand at the time, but I was later to understand what he was doing. If he found a tree that looked like a Christmas tree, he would stop, dig it out of the ground, put it in the car, and take it home.
That was our Christmas tree for the year.
Then, after the Christmas season, he would take that tree in our backyard and plant it. I cannot tell you how many Christmas trees were planted in our backyard, which made my father so very proud. I cannot tell you how many times he would sit on the back porch and look at those Christmas trees. He could tell which year each Christmas tree was acquired.
Of course, the same attitude was prevalent at our birthdays. Mom would like to get us half a dozen birthday gifts, but Dad would only settle for one. I can remember them arguing over which gift to get me for my birthday.
It was not that our father did not like us; he was just very careful about his money. Money came very hard to him, and he was going to make sure it would be harder to go out of his bank than to go in. From him, I learned the importance of saving and being cautious with spending, lessons that still guide me today.
I like to go online to check my bank account, and when I do, I think of my father. How he would have loved checking his money every day. To him, money was very important.
The Apostle Paul understood this in 1 Timothy 6:10a, “For the love of money is the root of all evil.”
Our problem is not money itself. We need money to live every day. “The Love of money” is what undermines our lives.
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Dr. James L. Snyder
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