A reader writes:
My wife says I should not write this because people will think we are boasting. I told her it is the opposite. We did not do this by ourselves and I think that is the whole point.
We married young. I was twenty-four, she was twenty-three. I work in IT support for a distribution company and she is a teacher. Between us the salaries were not bad, but by the time rent was paid, and her student loan, and a little something to my mother, there was not much left. We had a savings account at the credit union that went up and down like a see-saw. Every time we got close to anything, something happened. Her father’s surgery. My car. A burglary in our rented place that took the TV and her laptop.
At church there is a sister, Miss Gloria, who has run a box for as long as anybody can remember. Everybody calls it the church box, but it is not official, it is just her. Twelve people, one hand a week, and every week one person draws the whole pot. People have used it for school fees, funerals, a car, one man used it to start his barbering shop. When we were first married, she came up to my wife after service and said, “Young people like you should be in my box.” My wife laughed it off. I think we both felt a bit proud. We had good jobs. We did not need a partner scheme like our grandparents.
A year later, after the burglary, we went and found her.
The first thing she did was ask us what we wanted the money for. Not in a nosy way. She said, “If I know what it is for, I can put you in the right place in the line.” We said a deposit for a house. She thought for a minute and put us near the end of the cycle, not the beginning. She said, “You will build the habit first, and when the draw comes you will not be tempted to spend it on foolishness.” I was a bit annoyed at the time. She was right.
We did two cycles. The discipline was the main thing. Knowing that on Thursday night Miss Gloria’s grandson would come by for the hand, and that eleven other people were counting on us, made us find the money in a way the credit union never did. We cut things we did not even notice we were spending on. My wife started carrying lunch. I sold my PlayStation, which I am still a little bit sorry about.
I want to be honest that it was not all sweet. One man in the first cycle drew early and then stopped paying. Miss Gloria covered him out of her own pocket for two weeks, and there was a lot of talk. It made me nervous. Nobody signs anything in a box, it is all trust. If Miss Gloria was a different kind of person, we could have lost everything. I would not tell anybody to do this with people they do not know.
The other thing was pride. Some people at church know we are in the box and they would joke, “The IT man can’t save his own money?” It stung a bit. But the older ones, the ones who had built their houses that way, would just nod at us. One deacon told me he paid for his first piece of land with three hands from a box in the seventies.
Our second draw came in the same month we found the house. I am not going to say it was a miracle, because I know how these things are organised. But it felt like one. A small two-bedroom, not far from her school, that needed paint and a new water heater. The draw, plus what we had in the credit union, plus a gift from my wife’s aunt in New Jersey, covered the deposit and the closing costs. Just about. We signed with about three thousand dollars left in the account and I did not sleep well for a month.
When we got the keys, we invited Miss Gloria first. She sat on our one chair, because we did not have furniture yet, and she prayed over every room. She did not pray for the house to be big or beautiful. She prayed for peace in it, and for us to always have a door open for people.
We are still in the box. Not for anything big now, just because it feels right. And because there is a young couple who joined last month, and I remember being them.
— Andre, Portmore
Editor’s note
Andre’s letter captures why informal savings circles, known across the region as partner, pardner, susu or box, have helped so many families. They build discipline and belonging as much as savings. His honesty about the risks is just as valuable. These arrangements rest entirely on trust, usually with no written agreement or protection if someone defaults, so they are best kept among people you know well, with a trusted organiser, and alongside regular savings in a bank or credit union.
We were struck, too, by Miss Gloria’s prayer: not for a bigger house, but for peace and an open door. That is a fine blessing for any new home.
Reader letters may be edited for length and clarity, and names and identifying details are changed.
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