No Limits Ladies.com

Summertime and my mother are synonymous for a plethora of reasons. Mostly because it was during this time that I learned life's important lessons that were by far the most paramount to the academic ones I was being fed the other 9 months of the year.

Some of these key learning opportunities included the time she silenced my older sister and on a I family road trip to Atlanta from quibbling over hunger pains by splitting an apple in half with her bare hands.( An amazing party trick that still has our jaw dropping in our adult years. I addition, I have attempted to try to replicate it only to nearly loose a digit! ).

My mother was always a maven for making much out of very little. A prime example of this talent was her brilliant negotiating tactic of bartering for my private education by availing her culinary skills to my grammar school. However, the magic trick that saved my derriere throughout college and currently now as an adult is the "five buck wonder".

The summer before my fifth grade year turned out to be the most financially challenging for many reasons, despite this circumstance my mother's exemplary "steel magnolia" fashion proved to enrich my life for years to follow. My mother and I needed to buy groceries and while the major bills of mortgage and utilities had been paid through the summer we still needed to eat.

Between the two of us, we had five dollars that we were able to round up. We trekked up the street to the bus stop because our transportation was sometimes not as reliable as we would have desired. Armed with bus passes, my mother's coupon pouch and five dollars in hand, we proceeded to our local Save n Pack. In my mind I was only anticipating a loaf of bread, jelly and peanut butter, but as I learned that summer and continue to appreciate more and more, my mother had plans that were beyond my expectation.

To my amazement we walked away with cereal, bananas and milk( due to a coupon that allowed for a free half gallon of milk and 1 lb of bananas with the purchase of a particular store brand cereal) , a package of leg quarters, a loaf of bread and 2 rolls of paper towels ( buy one get one free). I can remember leaving the store and feeling like the folks in the famous biblical parable where the loaf of bread and fish were divided among thousands.

Vivid to this day the teaching challenges me to convey its value to my daughter. She is three and already is learning about saving but most importantly even earlier than I about cost and budgeting. Just as my mother taught me on that summer day, occasionally we enter the store with only the money in mommy's pocket…$5, $10 or $20. Our game is to stay within that budget and even try to get change back. The change she gets to put in her piggy bank.

I am grateful for this lesson more than my mother will ever know. And that is to know that wealth doesn't come from denying ourselves of our needs but learning how to maximizing the potential of obtaining them by being creative with the resources to which we already have access.