Living on Half a Dime a Day

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"description": "LibriVox recording of Living on Half a Dime a Day, by Sarah Elizabeth Harper Monmouth. Read by Sue Anderson.

How to live on 5 cents a day! How to survive financial ruin without losing your house! How to keep to a bare bones budget and still have money left over to buy books! Tough questions! They were tough questions even in the 1870\u2019s, when Sarah Elizabeth Harper Monmouth penned her quirky memoir, the subtitle of which was \u201cHow a Lady, Having Lost a Sufficient Income from Government Bonds by Misplaced Confidence, Reduced to a Little Homestead Whose Entire Income is But $40.00 per Annum, Resolved to Hold It, Incurring no Debts and Live Within it. How She has Lived for Three Years and Still Lives on Half a Dime a Day.\u201d Sarah Elizabeth (\u2018Lizzie\u2018) Monmouth, born in 1829, was a Civil War widow, living on a run-down small farm in New Hampshire, when her investments imploded. She awoke one morning to find herself poor--an old roof above her, \u201cdearer than life,\u201d but \u201cnot a dollar of money left.\u201d For months she was \u201cparalyzed with cold, clammy terror . . . stunned and knew not what to do.\u201d Then her \u201cmind stepped to the front with a bold standard displayed.\u201d She said to herself \u201cUnderstand, once for all, that I rule and make your plans accordingly.\u201d She devised (and stuck to) a YEARLY budget, which consisted of $17 for food, $13 for fuel, and $10 for reading! How she managed this makes sometimes harrowing, sometimes amazing, and always fascinating reading. Food: \u201ca pound of oatmeal cooked on Monday would serve for a dessert through the week.\u201d Shoes: \u201cI took the soles of worn-out rubbers, lined them with flannel, and laced them on my feet as sandals.\u201d Books and magazines were the sole exceptions to her parsimony. \u201cMy mind . . . is the humored child. Reading is my salvation from total wreck . . . My one solace and relief in darkest time.\u201d In very cold spells, she would save firewood by crawling into bed with mittens on her hands to \u201cread a while, and when the room became too cold for this, cover all up and think over what I had read. This saved me in a degree from enervating myself further by fruitless poring over poverty and privations.\u201d Lizzie Monmouth\u2019s tale will make you stop and count your blessings...

How Lizzie Monmouth surmounted her poverty is an equally fascinating tale. She had an artistic bent and a knack for creating folk art from found materials. Working primarily with donated wallpaper sample books and tissue paper, she filled her home and a nearby church with floral garlands and elaborate paper mosaics featuring homilies and bible sayings. Visitors started coming to see her decorations, which an 1879 correspondent to the New York Times said \u201cproduce an effect strange, curious, and wonderfully artistic and beautiful.\u201d Lizzie began charging for home tours and selling picture postcards and pamphlets. The enterprising Mrs. Monmouth said of her new livelihood: \u201cI have honestly endeavored to get a \u2018show\u2019 worth a dime.\u201d (Summary by Sue Anderson)

The reader thanks the volunteer staff of the New Hampshire Historical Society for help in researching Lizzie Monmouth\u2019s life.

For further information, including links to online text, reader information, RSS feeds, CD cover or other formats (if available), please go to the LibriVox catalog page for this recording.

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