Category: Money

When you’re maturer, older, ripened,
You may know a larger stipend,
Except that as your grip relaxes
Upon youth, you’ll hear of taxes,
Plumbing, heating, grocery bills,
Doctors paid for sundry ills,
Insurance, toothpaste, telephone,
Painting, spouting, smart cologne,
Fur coats made from seals and otters–
And small requests from smallish daughters!

by Ray Romine Tuesday, January 30, 1951

That they control a mere percent
Of all the money saved or spent
The women wouldn’t quite agree.
My wife controls MY dough. And me.

by Ray Romine Thursday, May 18, 1950

Tipping is a nuisance;
Builds class hatred; is unfunny.
Perhaps here I should intersperse
It also costs me money…

by Ray Romine Wednesday, June 27, 1951

Tremendous forces work each day
To rob me of my weekly pay,
Pleasure to me is the foe
That takes away my hard-earned dough;
Joy’s the thing that really heckles
Me apart from sundry shekels,
Any frolic, any bender
Costs its bit of legal tender:
A train ride just to old Paducah
Takes a wad of filthy lucah;
Night-clubs, burlesque, women, liquor
Help my money fade the quicker.
Any little bit of pleasure
Cuts into my buried treasure.
Even to just stop and wonder
Takes, for books, its share of plunder.
And, if you are in the mood,
Think what costs my yen for food!
So I live beneath this lash:
If it’s fun, I pay in cash!

by Ray Romine Saturday, October 26, 1946

Loaning money, fate discloses,
Is the surest way to part with
Friends; but then this presupposes
One has friends with dough to start with.

by Ray Romine Monday, May 1, 1950

Tipping is a nuisance;
It also costs me money.
But I can’t stnd the pressure–
Here’s a Quarter, sonny.

by Ray Romine Wednesday, June 27, 1951

To one nagging worry we constantly give
More thought than we like to accord it:
Shall we own this or that thing today while we live,
Or wait unt il we can afford it?

by Ray Romine Saturday, August 22, 1953

In these days, one is apt to find,
There isn’t any other kind.

by Ray Romine Monday, February 26, 1951

Those who use this term must mean
The stuff has grown a little lean.

by Ray Romine Tuesday, February 27, 1951

For thirty years I envied those
Whose wives wore fifteen-dollar hose;
Who had the means to travel far
In iridescent motor-car;
Who smoked their 50¢ cigars,
And lined their basement rooms with bars ;
Whose sons and daughters went to college
To steep themselves in kinds of knowledge
On how to be so rich and foxy
That they might do their work by proxy!
But NOW I’m rather glad that I
‘m a self-reliant sort of guy!

I thought it fun to hire it done,
But now I’m not so sure–
Help can’t be had, which makes it bad
If you’re mechanically immature!

Though help is scarce, I carry on:
I hoe the garden, mow the lawn;
I sickle at the noxious weeds;
Wipe my own nose, and press my tweeds;
I make the beds, and change the baby;
Fix the plumbing–(fix it maybe)–
I scratch the match for my cigar;
I wash my cheap (but TIREless) car;
I am a brass and nickel burnisher;
I wax the dining and kitchen furnisher;
I shine my shoes and tie the strings,
Do other little kindred things;
I scrub, I glue, I fix, I paint–
And all because my money ain’t.
Though socially classed as minus pelf,
I’ve learned to do things for myself!

In spite of which, the idle rich
Retain their smug allure;
Yes, though I boast, I’d rather coast
And be less things done, than poor!

by Ray Romine Saturday, July 31, 1943