Dad was born in 1930, so he grew up during the Great Depression. Back then everyone understood what "make do" meant. The concept of keeping what you had, fixing it when it broke, and keep using it until it simply can't be used anymore. Because once it was gone, there was no replacement.
Add to that, Dad is OCD, so "thrifty" went from necessity to an obsessive compulsion turned outward. Another obsession was hunting and fishing. I find it amusing that most people in America ate beefs, pork, or chicken ever night of the week. We ate those things about once a week, and the other nights we ate wild ducks, pheasant, quail, rabbits, squirrels, frog legs, snapper (turtle) soup, crabs, perch, bass, sunnies, and pike. On Thanksgiving we might have a turkey, but it was more likely we'd have Canada goose. Christmas guaranteed Canada goose.
But going on a vacation for a family of five (and then six), meant renting a two-bedroom cabin in Canada for 2-3 weeks, and Mom was doing most of the cooking. (And almost meal was bass or pike.) Really bad, since Mom was allergic to fish to the point she was told to stay out of a house where fish was being cooked, but she survived, and then ate sandwiches.
That's my dad.
But in 1990, he had a health scare. He had precancerous growth on is prostate. His doctors talked him into getting it surgically removed. Back then, the results ended up about the same. Whether a man chose the surgery, radiation, or did nothing, the averages for living afterward were 13 years. (13.3 years for one, 13.5 years for another, and 13.9 years for the third.) Dad being OCD though, he had to go for the most drastic choice. That's who he is.
But that changed something in him. He took us all on a Western Caribbean cruise. All of us. And by that time he had a wife and two kids at home, plus four "kids," and two of use were married, so our spouses went. And my oldest brother had two kids so they went too. He paid for all of it. And, on a cruise, that includes every drink we had, every thing we ate, every destination we went to. (In Mexico, we went to the ruins. He paid for that. Others chose other things to see that day. In Caiman, we went to the Turtle Sanctuary and in a small submarine to see the sting rays, and he paid for that. Others went swimming with the sting rays. He paid for that. Every destination had a choice of what to do, and every choice cost more money.) He even paid for the $20 I lost in the casino on the ship. Everyone went to the casinos, and he paid for that too.
Best vacation ever, and I got to spend it with my entire family. (A chocolate on my made bed each day. Who wouldn't love that? lol) All paid for by the man who brought a family of five or six to a tiny two-bedroom cabin in the middle of no where and had a wife cook what she was allergic to eat. Pretty amazing!