The Jacobses' two daughters, Cindy and Sherri, lead a predictably inexpensive but thoroughly satisfying life. They never expect toys except at Christmas and birthdays, but fortunately they prefer imaginary toys or household items that can be pretended into something else. The current favorite is a suit box, which becomes a truck, a boat, or a house as the occasion demands.
Long age Dave and Betty decided they could not afford many children's books, but they discovered hundreds in the Bluffton public library. Every Saturday morning Dave takes Cindy and Sherri to the children's corner where each picks out three or four books for the coming week.
Little as the Jacobses spend on fripperies for their daughters, they spend less on themselves. Dave keeps about $2 out of his paycheck for cigarets, coffee breaks, and the feeling of having a little pocket money. Betty gets no money that isn't aimed at the week's groceries or bills she must pay.
LIVING IT UP. Marveling at size of sirloin steaks, Dave and Betty celebrate $4-a-week
raise at a restaurant dinner. They paid $3.50 each, left with enough uneaten steak
in a "doggie bag" to feed themselves, not the dog, all next day.
Presents for each other on special days are a problem, Betty simply clips a little from the food money; Dave merely smiles when the meals lean heavily to spaghetti and casseroles because he knows his birthday is approaching. Dave has his own ways of giving presents. Last fall he stopped smoking and drinking coffee and in three months had enough saved to surprise Betty on Dec. 25. But Betty's best Christmas came the year she was expecting Sherri. At that time Dave could get all the overtime work he wanted, and since Betty was sleeping late, he slipped out of the house two hours early every day for two months and went to work. That Christmas morning Betty sat on the living room rug and wept as she tore the wrappings from a new winter coat, lingerie, and a new carpet sweeper. "I was so worried," she say, "I thought he must have stolen the money."
The future is mortgaged
The Jacobses' future is completely mortgaged-not just by signed contracts but by an agreed-on way of life. In the years ahead they will pay off some debts now on the books but will certainly contract new ones. They plan to give more money to the church and Dave insists that both girls will get at least one year of college.
"Sometimes I get discouraged," Dave admits, "Sometimes I feel the job is going nowhere and there isn't much in the future. That's when I start thinking I might even go into some other line of work-maybe even a salesman. Then I know I won't. We'll stick it out. You can count on me going out and buying a couple of hundred pounds of fertilizer for the yard this year. Betty, she'll get another four or five rosebushes even though we've got 40 of them now.
"You know, I think the only thing to make us change would be if we had something we could do together- Betty and me, we'd really be happy then. But I guess that makes us no different from 70 million other Americans. I have wild dreams sometimes of working up something on the side- you know, something I could make for $.30 and sell for $3.00. It may Sound crazy, I know, but I'll think of it someday."
SPLURGING ON SHOES. - Sheri (top) and Cindy get new shoes in a Bluffton store. Betty and Dave pondered over how much they should spend, finally decided not to economize with their children's feet, paid $6 each for two pairs.
TRYING IT ON. - (right) Egged on by her husband, who worries because she hasn't had a new dress for a year, Betty tries models in a Bluffton shop. She liked several of them, bought none, cried at one point, "Oops, they want $25?"
