When I was little, the tooth fairy would give me ten cents for my baby teeth. I loved it because it would buy me a comic book or two candy bars (only one if I wanted Almond Joy or Mounds). I was incredibly rich.

If I happened to get a dollar bill in a birthday card (which only cost 39 cents), I was over the moon. TEN comic books, or a burger and a milkshake with leftover money. Or, a few years later, a lipstick or a bottle of nail polish with change, or a movie with popcorn and some left over for afterward. Even three or four gallons of gas, depending on whether we needed regular or premium. The world was endless with just a dollar in an envelope.

My children’s teeth were worth 25 cents, the birthday dollar was worth two dollars if given by a grandparent, maybe five dollars, and the card was worth up to a dollar. Comic books had gone up to 25 cents, and the cost of going to the movies was more than a dollar a ticket. The accompanying childhood knickknacks: matchbox cars, felt-tip pens, designer sneakers – that brought the amount up significantly compared to my measly burger and shake or Archie comic book.

When the granddaughters came along, the tooth fairy drove around in an armored car and birthday cards fetched $10 and sometimes $20 for jewelry. A movie cost $5 and no one read comic books anymore. Candy bars cost almost a dollar and the card itself cost at least $4.95. Electronic devices needed a few birthday cards to service and/or replenish them, and gasoline was out of sight.

This topic came up recently when we were in Idaho. My great nephew (my middle sister’s grandson) had just graduated high school and was immediately leaving for an organized educational trip to Peru. (Lucky guy!) and I decided to give him a cash gift because we were going there. He’s an 18-year-old boy who I’ve seen maybe five times in his life. We’ve never spoken beyond “how are you?” and I’m sure he refers to me as “one of the old aunties.” But his grandma had told me how he had saved up for the trip and how much he had worked to be able to make the trip, so I felt obligated to help just like that.

I gave him $50, all my cash (which is another discussion. Who carries cash these days? And why not?), but I felt like I should have given him double. Unfortunately, we would never see him again and we don’t do electronic transfers. (I know, that’s for old people.) So it was $50. And he was happy, or at least pretended to be.

But I thought back to similar gifts for our children and the children of various friends years ago. Five dollars in a card was greeted with a big smile. It wasn’t meant to fund a trip or buy anything big, but rather to enjoy a movie or buy a new notebook or maybe stock up on a new pair of jeans or the latest toy.

For the granddaughters, we had started the practice of giving them a dollar for each year to spend as they wished, plus a savings bond that would mature when they graduated from high school. They were always happy because they could plan what they wanted, and of course they could live more and more extravagantly as they got older. And we gave them the bonds when they graduated from school, and they cashed them when they needed to. We didn’t ask what they used them for. In fact, No. 5 still has a few uncashed, but she has a new baby, so I’m sure they’ll find good use.

Back in my days as a tooth fairy, the birthday dollar was precious because I didn’t often have money to spend as I pleased. I didn’t know or understand that this dollar was probably as hard to get as $20 is today, maybe even harder. It certainly had more purchasing power, at least for a child.

But the Peru trip was fun, says Nephew. He wants to go back there someday. I hope the $50 gift helped, if only to fund an extra souvenir or maybe a fun, unplanned trip. It was given with the idea that it was “pocket money,” always intended for lavish purposes.

And the days when gasoline cost 28 cents and birthday cards cost 25 cents are, I fear, just as much a matter of the tooth fairy: they are a thing of the past in our childhood memories.