Keeping score with money is tricky

My first regular paid job was as an Airman when I enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1971. There is a long, twisted tale about how that came to happen, but my point today is that I was paid $100 per month. Uniforms, housing in a dorm, and food were paid for by Uncle Sam, of course.

I'll just mention that again: $100 per month.

Imagine the joy I felt when my pay was TRIPLED in January of 1972, part of a large military pay bill signed by Richard Nixon. He briefly became my favorite president when I heard the news. Things were about to go very badly for the guy, that's for sure.

I suddenly was raking in $300 per month (plus $100 per month for my wife as her dependent allowance). 

In April of 1973, when Kathleen gave birth to Lesley in the RAF Lakenheath base hospital, the total bill for the delivery was under $8 (for food, I think).

This lengthy preface is to my observation this morning about the controversies about exactly how much annual income a person or couple could have and receive the full $1,400 emergency checks ($2,800 for couples). 

And my first thought was that our ideas about the economy and about who "deserves" what, and how much have changed quite a bit just within my lifetime. Part of that is due to something most people under age 25 don't know much about: inflation. For reasons that no one is able to fully explain, inflation has napped for the past few years, and the Fed doesn't expect that to change even with nearly $2 trillion about to be "printed" by the government.

Here's something else I can't really explain: No matter how how money my wife and I have earned over nearly 50 years of marriage, it was always enough. 

Except that one day in December of 1971 when I drove to Gatwick Airport south of London to pick up my wife who was flying in to join me in England. I arrived with only a few pence in my pocket. Not even enough to pay to exit the car park at the airport. 

Kathleen tells me the story of my first words when she stepped into the hall of Gatwick: "Do you have any money at all?"

She did, as the government had mailed her a couple dependent checks while she was still in Iowa. So we were able to pay the parking fee and drive to our temporary home in Newmarket, in a building that was about to be condemned. 

I guess I have always been a romantic.