lost and found money

Abi was selling chocolates in the beginning of the year for a school fundraiser. My family has been waiting for this one to pop up since September, and I was starting to feel like a fraud when it didn't happen over Christmas. (she sold dumb poinsettias instead. pfft.) But finally they released a bunch of cases of chocolates and there was much rejoicing. See, these aren't just any kind of chocolates. Nay. These are World's Finest Chocolates. If you haven't tried them, you are missing out of, seriously, the World's Finest Chocolates.

It helps that this company is from a small town where my father grew up in, and that our family has a bit of an obsession with it. We are kind of chocolate snobs, to be honest. My Dad wouldn't buy some little girl's chocolates that she was selling at his door a few years ago when he found out they weren't World's Finest. *snicker. Horrible.

So there was much happiness when we finally got to sell these. Abi did a quick walk around the block once, sold a few, but then sold the rest to her extended family. 6 cases in all! $300 in total, to be exact! Nice! Except that when we gave the cheque for the amount to the school, they never cashed it. We waited for over a month. Do you know how stressful it is to have money in the bank that you know you can't touch because it is earmarked for a removal due to cheque? It was painful for my Hunny! We asked the school about it, to be told that they deposited all of the cheques. H'mm...that's strange. Did they not notice they were short $300? We didn't hear anything back from them, after they said they'd look into it, but finally two weeks later, it was suddenly deposited and all is fine again.  (To be honest, I was really hoping they had lost the cheque and had decided that we didn't need to owe them any money at all, that it had all been miraculously been covered. Oh well.)

Meanwhile, Abi was finding money!  She had received an art easel for Christmas from her Grandma Lynn that had came all shrink wrapped in a black bag. She has used the easel and has painted a few times, but the bag had hung on her door handle for a few months already when she looked through it one night. And pulled out a folded 100 bill! What? Sadly, neither her father nor I were missing any money, and it didn't come from her Grandma being sneaky with money, so where did it come from? The black canvas bag that the easel came in was shrink wrapped as well, so couldn't have been just randomly placed there. It was a neatly folded bill too. It was a bizarre find!

We held on to it for a while, trying to decide what to do with it, when in the end we thought that since Abi found it in her possessions that the money was hers! Nice!  She really wanted a new camera, although her father really didn't like the idea. He wanted her to upgrade her phone, that has an upgraded camera, but she just doesn't even use her phone! She is never on it! (she has a Blackberry, which is crapping out on the battery, of course, so it's flakey.) She doesn't have any friends that she texts with, even though most of them all have their own phones. The only time she is on it is to check out youtube videos for her favourite songs. (one of the rules to her having her own phone with wifi access is that we are allowed to inspect it at any time, for any reason. The good news is that Abi is pretty boring and really doesn't do anything on her phone, so her history isn't anything to worry about!) She wanted a camera. This camera to be exact. But Hunny was so against the idea! He thought she would be wasting her money! I reminded him that she is only 12, and sometimes wasting money just happens at this age. Yes, we could advise her on purchases and investments and spending wisely, but in the end, she is the one that will have to make the final decision. And sometimes you just have to buy something fun!  In the end, she (and I) won! She got her camera!

I am excited for her. I remember my own Polaroid camera that took sticker pictures. It was so much fun! (and so much smaller than her camera. I was so surprised at how bulky hers is!) I still have those photos in an old wallet. (a few taken of Abi as a baby, even! so it wasn't that long ago. But it's too bad that they don't make film for it anymore. Or do they? If you know of any being sold, let me know! I still have that camera hanging around somewhere. The kids love to play with it!)   **It was the Polaroid i-Zone. I just found out that it is still available on Amazon! Sweet!

So far, she likes to take selfies (haha), but come summer time and more fun activities, she will have more opportunities to play around with it. I am glad that she was able to buy something "silly"!

She started a paper route a few months ago, and we already have got her putting some money aside for long term savings (such as university or car or whatever), short-term savings (such as a new camera, lol, or an iPod), for tithing (giving to our church or to an organization she feels led to support), and for spending. So far, some of her spending has to go to her brothers for helping her with her route on busy days. but it's a start! I never had money management training from my parents, and in a lot of ways I feel like Hunny and I are the worst ones to learn from as well, but we need to teach our own children to take care of what they are given. It's so easy for them to just assume that the bank card holds unlimited amounts of money. If I tell them that I don't have any more to spend, they think that I should just be able to go to the bank for more. Oh, how I wish I could do that too! So we are trying to teach them. Eventually they will get it. Hopefully before they are out of school and into the world!