When I was a teenager, I had an allowance of $5 a week. We weren’t allowed to work part time jobs because my parents wanted to be sure we were focused on our schoolwork. That $5 covered buying gum, candy, ice cream, and going out weekends with friends. That $5 paid for independence and freedom of choice. I would call that a good deal.
In college, I spent a year abroad in Germany on a scholarship. I received my scholarship money of $120 once a month – it seemed like a lot of money, more than enough to meet all my needs for four weeks. But in my first month on my own, I was down to just about the equivalent of $6 in DM with one week to go and wondering how I would eat the last half of the week. Luckily, I was able to get an advance on my next month but it was a shocking reality check.
Once I graduated, I moved into my first ever apartment. The rent was $291/month. The first time I wrote a check for it, I had to include a security deposit so the total was $582. $582! My hand shook when I wrote that first check. It seemed an impossible amount. I budgeted myself to $40/week in discretionary spending money. What I had done with $5 a week now cost eight times that amount.
After I got married, my husband and I bought our first house. Suddenly, our single expenditures were all over three digits. It seemed that nothing cost under $100 anymore. As time passed and we moved to houses we liked better and finally to property, those expenditures expanded to 4 digits just to take care of renovations and property maintenance. My monthly credit card charges expanded to almost equal that of the mortgage.
Life seemed to get more expensive as it got more complicated – or was it the other way around?
Nothing, however, makes me think more about that $5 allowance than the transactions that are part of being an alpaca breeder. Even as we bemoan the drop in alpaca prices with the economy, we must realize we are still talking about thousands of dollars. At an auction, these amounts are spent at the drop of a hat or to be more accurate, the raising of one little finger detected under the laser vision of an auctioneer spotter. Is it crazy for me to think it would be a huge coup to purchase an animal I want at a mere $15,000 this week and then feel crippled the following week by having to pay $3,000 for a new well pump? How did water I need today become less worthy of my hard-earned dollars than an animal that only has a promise of return tomorrow? Why do I grumble over my increased grocery bills but gladly fork over top dollar for beautiful second cutting orchard hay? At what point did the needs of my alpacas supersede my own?
Even though it was thirty odd years ago, I still remember the feeling of receiving that crisp new $5 bill every week. Each bill represented a week of endless possibilities. My puny $5 to be spent purely on things I wanted, free of mandate. Perhaps that’s the unquantifiable value in the transactions that are routine in the alpaca business. We want an animal, we want to provide them with the best, we want to produce the best animals out there, we want to dabble in creation and succeed, we want to declare ourselves as entrepreneurs and subject to no one. I have to have a water pump, I have to buy groceries. Mandated, not desired.
When does $5 equal $15,000? When it gives me the same feeling as buying my own candy bars did years past, with that first toothsome bite of freedom and empowerment. And though I may long for the simplicity of long ago, as an adult I realize the challenges have to come with greater risk and cost to reap the rewards that will yield the same satisfaction as that measly bar of chocolate. After some consideration – it’s still a good deal.
The Pacablogger 