Para's picture of the dick tracy wrist radio sparked a memory.

My first save-to-buy item was from an ad in a comic book. Some type of pedometer/compass thing. I thought it would be great and marvelous to know how far I had walked and run while playing in the summer...
Of course, since the ad was right beside the x-ray glasses - it didn't really work too well when I finally got it in the mail.

Lesson learned at a young age. Virgin shopper no longer :-)

Did you have something special that prompted you to start saving your earnings or allowance ?

A better bicycle.

An Electrophonic am/fm, 8-track tape recorder. Had a phono input for my BIC turntable and two aux inputs.

I played the snot out of that!!!

No money involved, but I remember begging my mother to buy more Fruit Loops so I could get enough boxtops to send off for a free "Han Solo as a Stormtrooper" action figure.

I had forgotten about cereal boxtops. I saved those for stuff, but can't remember what.

There was also some cereal that had actual prizes or toys inside.

I remember opening boxes from the bottom to get the prize before anyone else

An RC Car. I remember having to save over $100 for it.

First thing I remember saving money to buy was the ELO .45 “Don’t Bring Me Down” in 1979. I was only 7. Still have it somewhere.

A blue bicycle with one of those banana seats. I had outgrown my small bike and wanted a big boy bike. That $10 seemed like a fortune back in 197...8 probably.

A used Whizzer motor bike. It cost $25, and that was a lot of money in those days!!

My brother and I pooled our money after saving for most of a year to get an original Nintendo. My mother wasn’t going to stop us from buying one, but refused to be a party to bringing video games into the home. Ironically, one of the first games we got was Tetris and she became hooked.

A Benjamin Franklin “bolt action-hammer fire-hair trigger” pneumatic air rifle that shoots .22 caliber lead air rifle shot loaded in its 85 shot tubular piggy back magazine. I mowed lawns all summer to get the $39.95 it cost back in the late 1960s.



I still have it and it still works.

A wrist rocket from the LL Bean catalog. I worked on a dairy farm down the road for .50 a day, plus all the fresh milk we needed at home and Days Work and Red Man I could chew. I was eight

A gas powered lawn mower. Used a reel mower up to that point mowing lawns.

Schwinn BMX style bike. I think it was a Preditor.

A 0.1 caret diamond pendant for a HS GF. The sales guy was very very clear, "Forget the girl, buy yourself a nice watch". This is when a new Rolex Air King might have cost $300-$400.

I'd still have that 34mm watch, stretched band and all. While the GF? She married a doctor. Divorced, popped for possession, and again for DUI ...

M88 Winchester 308 by mowing lawns and then borrowed some from my brother to make the purchase.

Car parts for a 1970 Chevelle I rebuilt out of boxes.

A billfold wallet. After I got it, I had nothing to put in it.

My first deer rifle in 1969. It was a Winchester 88 in 308 cal. I still have it and will be in the woods with it in about a month.

While a working teenager I saved so I could flee California when I became an adult. Best decision I ever made.