I’m a low-maintenance girl. Growing up, as long as I got the newest book by my favorite author, I was happy. (At least as happy as a teenager could be, with all those hormones making me cranky.)

These days, now that I’m “free” to do what I want, I don’t even go shopping unless I’m visiting my mom down south (so . . . once a year).

You see, when I was young, my family worked off of a preacher’s salary, which paid the bills, and whatever my mom could make from her BeautiControl job. I never regretted coming from a modest home, and I never envied people richer than me. I had everything I needed in life — loving parents, a couple of cats, a brother I idolized, and relatives who doted on me.

I’ve always had the things you can’t buy. And over the years, I’ve only gotten more thankful for them.

But this post is about me and money. And to understand why I am the way I am about money, I need to start with some background from my childhood.

You see, I was always pretty aware of how modest our income really was. I never actually worried about money, because that’s not a kid’s job and my parents did great at keeping us from worrying even when things were tight, but my parents did tell us when we weren’t going to be able to buy new Barbies (me) or CDs (my brother) for a while. And I always became hyper-conscious of spending when they did that.

Now, this was never a negative thing. I just want to come out and say that for my parents, for when they read this. I wasn’t worrying, I was just aware.

And it so happened that my mom always had a pattern. She’d tell us we couldn’t buy many shiny things for a little while, then a week or so later we’d splurge on something (right after the church elders in Alabama advised my parents to file for bankruptcy, which they always regretted afterward, the splurge was Oreos; and after I told mom that I knew we weren’t in too much financial trouble because we had Oreos, which I now suspect were on sale for being old and crumbly, she always buys them before I come visit; because my mom is cute like that).

So I always noticed the splurge, even if it was just my mom coming home with a new outfit, and I figured she’d managed to make enough money to cover it. So I never really begrudged the spending of money, because I trusted my parents, and if the splurge seemed excessive, I’d say something like, “Can we afford this?” and my mom would say “Of course we can,” and then shush me because she was chatting up the saleswoman, trying to get her to agree to a BeautiControl spa party (which is a whole other set of amusing anecdotes from my childhood — waiting for mom while she did business).

This awareness of money I developed can be summed up in a small story: In grade school, your math teacher inevitably gives you the “Would you rather have a one-time allowance of $1 million or a daily allowance of 1 cent doubled for one year?” And the idea is that the 1 cent doubled is way way way way more. But when it came time to raise our hands, I knew that 1 cent was way way way more, but because I knew that, I voted for the $1 million because my parents couldn’t afford the other one. I mean, even with the $1 million, they would have had to take out a mortgage on the house. And even though the teacher told us that we’d chosen wrong, that we would want the 1 cent doubled for a year because it was more, I thought to myself, “No, I don’t want that. I want the cheaper one, because my parents would run out of money with the other and not be able to pay me.”

That way of thinking made me really care about my own budget, so I handle the money for Alex and myself, and he lets me because he hates doing bills. And I keep him informed on how things are going. It works really well.

Now I come to one of my points: My parents are extremely generous, especially with their kids. Growing up, they didn’t have a lot to be generous with, but usually when my brother went shopping with my mom, he’d come home with a new CD and she’d give me as much as she spent on him to use for Barbies or books (depending on how old I was at the time).

I never really liked to ask for things, partly because I was conscious of our modest income, and partly because I just didn’t want very much. But if my parents offered, I would almost always accept.

So, all of that to tell you two stories about how adorable my parents are. See, they have more cash to throw around now that their kids are gone, dad finished his book, and mom got a full-time federal job. And they like to toss that money our way, for no real reason except they love us and want us to be taken care of.

So, first, my apartment building hadn’t turned the heat on yet, and I remembered the hot water bottle I got in Finland with my friends. (It’s cute, has a stuffed polar bear cover.) But I’m never able to find it when I visit home. So I called my dad and was like “Hey, if you could find this hot water bottle and send it to me, that would be awesome. If you can’t, that’s cool.” (I named it Kiitos, the Finnish word for “Thank you” because that was the only word we learned.) A few days later, I thought he might have managed to dig through my old room a bit, so I called him up, and he said, “Well, I’ve been through [insert any place anything might possibly be in my parent’s house, including a wall-to-wall packed storage shed] and couldn’t find it. So I got you an electric blanket and a heating pad, and I’m mailing them. But don’t worry, I’ll keep looking.”

I grinned, winced, said he didn’t have to go to so much trouble, but he insisted and I laughed when I hung up and told Alex, who also laughed and shook his head.

Man, I love my dad. He’s so sweet.

Now, earlier I told you about my mom saying “We won’t be able to spend very much” and then buying stuff. I did that to say that it happened this year, when she warned us that Christmas might be smaller than usual, since they’d had some unexpected expenses, including buying new computers for both my dad and brother, because theirs broke down (though my brother is married and has a job, mom is generous). But my mom’s habit of buying me something comparable to what she bought my brother trumps any lack of funds. So, in true form, she offered me a new computer for my birthday. And since I rarely decline when something is offered, especially something I’d really like, I accepted.

So I have a new computer for my birthday, which is today. *joy*

It doesn’t get here until Friday, but there’s this really great Chinese guy who runs a really great shop, and he’ll give you an amazing deal on a new computer. He builds them to your specifications and charges almost no markup on the wholesale price (thus he gets intensely loyal customers and makes all his money on the repair side of things), which means I’m getting a $1400 computer for under $900, including tax and labor (my husband is a computer guy, and he says this is a top-of-the-line system, which I need to do video editing).

I wouldn’t give you the prices on that, because I suspect talking about money might be tacky, but I really wanted to tell people about this guy because he’s nice, honest, and awesome. We told him the computer was a birthday present from my mom, and he gave me a free t-shirt. (I’m taking him a birthday cupcake for that.) And he built a system for our friend Chris last summer, and it still works perfectly. Anyway, he’s in south New Jersey and if you want to know where he is, you can email me. I’d love to throw new business his way.

So, in summary: My parents are insane and Chinese guy is awesome. Happy birthday to me!