Ya now I have the money to buy whatever batteries I need (thank you Amazon Basics) but as a kid we definitely didn't have the money to afford batteries. We didn't even buy paper towels, just used tea towels (as we called them). This also created an aversion to over using paper towels in my adult years. This isn't meant as some "whoa is me", but just a comment on how pricing and costs growing up can affect you for a very long time.