We are out of money. Now, as most middle class credit-card, line of credit folks, this doesn’t mean a lot. It just means that we don’t have money in checking. But we were surprised at how fast our money went.
Here’s the double bind that makes me crazy. We told Kyle that we were not going to be responsible for his clothing or personal items while we were paying for college. He has money every month that he can use for that. But whenever he comes home he always has some need, and, because we love him, we usually buy him the stuff he needs.
This Christmas he came home needing shoes and a coat. He did what he needed to do to convince us to agree to pay for them. Now today he’s off to buy an $800 snowboard. This annoys me, to use a nice word. It really makes me crazy that we can spend money for what he needs because he can’t afford what he needs, but then he can afford what he wants. And an $800 snowboard is so FAR away from the “good purchase at this point in your life” category that I’m seeing stars...
Lift tickets cost $20 bucks in Sioux Falls, SD.... which is probably the cheapest around. Others are $30 or $35 for a day. He has $100 a month spending money. He can’t stop himself from seeing at least a movie a weekend. And yet, somehow he NEEDS this snowboard. The chance of it paying for itself within the next five years even is slim to none. He’d have to go about 32 times to cover the cost of his snowboard. Isn’t going to happen.
And of course, Mike is complaining that we aren’t going to buy him a $150 pair of snowpants when there are snow pants lying around our house that might fit him and we offered to buy him a pair for $20, but that isn’t enough. And this is a kid who earned money at the group home and has already blown ALL of it in buying a skateboard deck. Even though on Monday he had over $100 he will be flat broke by tomorrow night.
Some people just cannot be satisfied and it is hard when we try to please them and can never do so.
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