A Budget Story for Lisa

I was at lunch today and got a text from my sister-in-law Lisa saying that she enjoyed reading my blog. But she asked if I had any good stories about the budget we implemented a while ago or was it scrapped. I had to chuckle for a moment because Penni had just given me a book to read about getting financially fit. So to answer your question - no the budget is in full force.

A little while later my phone rang and it was Penni – I was in the middle of something so I let it go to voicemail. Then she called again in less than a minute. Which is never a good sign -either this is an emergency or I am in trouble. We have very little emergencies in our family. So a couple minutes later I called her back. But now I have my budget story……………

Nichole had been planning a trip to the mall for weeks. Today the girls didn’t have any school, so Nichole wanted to go to the mall with her friends. When I first heard about her plan I didn’t see how she was going to get it past her mom. But she did – what I found out this morning was that Penni was going to take them to the mall and then stay at the mall while Nichole went with her friends. I hope Nichole sees what a good mother she has. Penni took Zoe around the mall for look for birthday suggestions and I guess Zoe has a long list of wants.

Well they were at the mall and Nichole took her clothing budget money – which was $60. At some point Penni met up with Nichole and Nichole wanted to show Penni her new purchase. Nichole had found a new shirt from Hollister for (drum roll please) $60. The emergency that I was being called about was how to handle the situation. A sixty dollar shirt – Penni’s first response was that she could get 6-8 shirts for $60. Then Penni proceeded to tell me that the shirt was not modest enough to wear by itself, that she needed another shirt under it to make it appropriate. At the end of our phone conversation Penni said that she need to walk down to See's candies and have a peice of chocolate to calm her down.

My response to Penni was to let her keep it – don’t let her take the tags off and hopefully after a night’s sleep she will make a better decision. But don’t - rip into her in the middle of the mall. Which was probably not going to happened – Penni’s biggest concern was that we have been spending lots of time teaching our girls about budgeting and not expecting to get everything that they want. And if Nichole wanted this shirt bad enough then that was her choice – and she was going to have to suffer the concequences. The concequesnce being – Mom I don’t have anything to wear – When are you going to do laundry? I only have one shirt and I wore it yesterday. When I get home I will have to take a picture of Nichole wearing her $60 shirt. I am sure she looks cute wearing it.