Growing up, I rolled my eyes at my grandma’s thrifty habits. She darned socks instead of buying new ones and washed plastic utensils to reuse them. When I inherited a single $50 gift card after her death, I figured it was just another example of her penny-pinching ways.
But when I tried to use that card, the store staff reacted like I’d handed them a winning lottery ticket. Turns out, my grandma had been secretly buying these cards for years and leaving them for people in need—single parents, struggling families, anyone down on their luck.
That $50 was her last unredeemed gift. I ended up giving it to a young mother counting coins at a diner, just like grandma would have wanted. Now I see her “cheapness” for what it really was—a way to fund her quiet generosity.
