What is the only item that Momma spends money on?

Angelou writes that when she and her brother are growing up in Stamps, they eat mainly from the smokehouse, the garden near Momma's store, and canned food. However, twice a year, Momma feels that children should eat fresh meat and allows the children to go to town to buy the meat from white grocers with refrigerators (12). Stamps is so segregated that many of the African American children have never even seen whites before.
In general, Momma is very frugal. She buys two rolls of cloth each year and uses them to make summer and winter clothes, including Marguerite's dresses and handkerchiefs and Bailey's shirts and shorts, as well as her own dresses and aprons. The author contrasts her family's careful use of money with the wastefulness she sees in the white community, and she envies the money that allows whites to be so wasteful (18).