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POSTED: Thursday, Jul. 23, 2009

'Dumb farm luck' served county woman well

Name: Dee Culver.

Age: 90.

Residence: The Willows Retirement Apartments, Bellingham.

Family: Three children, four grandchildren, six great-grandchildren.

The big ledger: Dee Culver was married for 57 years to Clifford Culver, who worked as a dairy farmer and for a cattle breeding firm after the couple arrived from North Dakota in 1947.

"I learned finances from Clifford," she says. "A few years before he died, he turned over our big ledger to me, and I'm still working out of that ledger."

Fond memory: "I met Clifford when I was playing bingo with corn on the numbers in North Dakota," she says. "He wound up throwing corn at my back to get my attention. Then he asked me to dance, and that was the start of it."

How she made extra money: "Over the years, I've sold refurbished oak furniture I found at estate sales. I've sold Avon cosmetics and I've sold oil paintings at Leavenworth's Art in the Park and at other shows.

"But I haven't painted in 10 years because I became allergic to paint. I did all this for the love of people, more than anything else."

'Dumb farm luck:' Culver says she "just had dumb farm luck" when it came to real estate finances, but she now realizes just how wisely she and her husband were in twice paying off homes quickly in order to pay as little interest as possible.

"When we moved into Bellingham in 1982 from our farm on the Kelly Road, our home off Lakeway cost about $38,000, and when I sold it four years ago, before the real estate slump hit, it sold for more than $300,000 right away."

Three-year payoff: The Culvers bought 80 acres and a farm home on Kelly Road not long after arriving in Whatcom County.

"We scrimped and saved and paid off all that property in three years," she said. "I never expected to do it any other way."

Dairy money: When their children were grown, Culver started working for the Washington State Dairy Commission in the 1960s, promoting its Dairy Princess project.

"My girls all called me 'Chap' because I was their chaperone," she says. "I taught the girls how to dress, how to act at a banquet, special manners, and we would go shopping together for their special wardrobes.

"My daughter, Diana Bakkom, was fortunate enough to be chosen as a Dairy Princess."

Be careful with financial information: Culver says that under no circumstances should anyone, especially seniors, give out financial information over the phone or the Internet, unless it's to a family member you know well or to a trusted financial advisor. "It's just not worth the risk," she says.

Use your answering machine: "If the caller hears your message and hangs up, you know you may well have protected yourself from a scam," Culver says. "There are so many these days."

And use a paper shredder: "I use a shredder for mail," she says. "It's one of the best things you can have. Don't be gullible, and don't take chances with your information."

A vote for financial diversity: "I'd also tell anyone, young or old, to get a good financial advisor and then be sure your investments are diversified with a mixture of stocks, bonds, CDs and cash," Culver advises.

"I've suffered some losses in the market like so many others," she says, "but I haven't been as worried as I would have been if it had all been in stocks."

Financial philosophy: Her approach is simple and direct.

"Pay cash if at all possible," she says. "If you can't afford it, don't buy it."

"I'll always remember as a girl how my dad, who was a minister, had to live on what came in on the collection plate. We were poor, but we had a lot of riches in the way of love in our family."

It's a lesson not always learned by people today, Culvers says.

"Some young people today feel they need to have new furniture right away and so on," she says, "but it's better to live within your means."

Picking and choosing: "I knew when I was planning my move to The Willows that I couldn't bring everything from our home off Lakeway, so I studied the floor plan at my new residence and planned just what I could take," Culver says. "I gave some of our things to our children and grandchildren, and I also just gave away a lot of the stuff. I didn't have to take anything to the dump!"