Oh, that beguiling generation gap

remembered the story Elaina told me - that she and her husband went out to lunch with their 12-year-old granddaughter, Alexa, who was present at the table but who was concentrating very hard on her smart phone. Alexa automatically clicked a selfie then set about editing it in some photo editing app. She added smiley faces and some abbreviated caption for her friends.

She put it on Instagram after some minor editing and adding filters. Alexa then screenshot the Instagram picture, cropped it and put it on WhatsApp status, FB Messenger story, Snapchat story and another app Elaina had never heard of. All of this was done so quickly Elaina didn’t even catch what she was doing. After finishing her whole story I told Elaina I had to agree with her - that is a clear picture of the generation gap. Not to be outdone, as I was talking with Elaina I mentioned the story my nephew, Richie, who is 11, told me about the “Grin Fish.” In art class at school Richie and his classmates learned how to make some pottery pieces. One day the task was to make something that could be mounted on the wall. It should be fun, the teacher said, and could be offbeat or quirky if the “artist”/kid wanted it to be.

An amateur fisherman when school is out for the summer, Richie decided to make a fish out of pottery. Getting to work, Richie fashioned the clay so his fish would be a good-sized piece and would have a great smile and large, buggy eyes. Happy with how it was shaping up, a classmate of Richie’s walked by, saw it and yelled, “Hey, I like your Grin Fish.” Even the art teacher had to admit it was funny. Smiling, Richie sat back and admired his Grin Fish. The piece was put in the kiln and it turned out great.

Everyday Cheapskate

Why You Need an Emergency Fund and How to Get One

Continued from previous page prepared.

I understand these are tough times and it’s challenging to find money to save. But do you really have any options? If your current lifestyle is sucking up every last dollar of your income, thereby putting you and your family at risk, it’s time to make changes.

Start small. While you need a big, healthy contingency fund (equal to at least six months’ living expenses), do not focus on that big number. Start by saving $500. Then reset your goal to $1,000. Now you’re on your way. You’re catching the savings bug. Soon you will reach $2,500.

Richie was so proud of his Grin Fish that he wanted to display it in his kitchen. He showed his parents and they liked his Grin Fish. His dad got a hammer and nail and found the perfect place for it.

Elaina got a kick out of the story about Richie’s Grin Fish but she added that it really wasn’t a story about the generation gap. Pausing, I laughed then asked Elaina if she had ever thought of making a Grin Fish in art class when she was a kid. Thinking for a minute, Elaina laughed long and hard and had to agree that she had not.

People talk about the millennials and Generation X and I say it gets so confusing, who can keep up? The experts explain that Generation X is anyone born from 1965 to 1980. Baby boomers are born from 1946 to 1964. Millennials are born from 1981 to 1996. Generation Z is anyone born from 1997 to 2012. Now we’ve got Generation Alpha. With all of the talk about the alphabet letters X, Y and Z, it’s difficult to keep up with. What’s next?

With my own relatives, I’ve asked my nieces and nephews for iPhone tips and they show me but sometimes I suspect they’re running out of patience. It’s not what they say but the fact that for them, it’s simple to attach photos to emails and send them to individuals or group lists 1-2-3. Easy peasy. What’s so hard about that? Their young faces look at me quizzically and I look back intently wanting to tell them how different things were in the “olden days” but I hold back, not wanting to bore them with my trips down memory lane.

Even though they don’t ask, I tell them that when my friends and I were their ages, 10-19, we had patience. If an elder asked us to show them something, we’d do it over and over until they got it all while being as patient as could be.

They laughed at that and I said, “Ok, maybe we weren’t always patient,” but I remember showing my grandfather how to play on my Atari, a home video game console. He was perplexed at first but then he got going and managed to beat me at “Pong.” It was new to him and today I say, “It’s a whole new world.”

Then $5,000 will be in view.

That’s the way to do it. But you’ll never reach your goal until you get that first $500 out of reach and safely tucked away in a savings account.

Mary invites you to visit her at EverydayCheapskate.com, where this column is archived complete with links and resources for all recommended products and services. Mary invites questions and comments at https://www.everydaycheapskate.com/contact/, “Ask Mary.” This column will answer questions of general interest, but letters cannot be answered individually. Mary Hunt is the founder of EverydayCheapskate. com, a frugal living blog, and the author of the book “Debt-Proof Living.”

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