Allowance

When we were younger Dennis, Sarah Margaret, and I used to get a weekly allowance. Our allowance went up and we got older, so I had the lowest allowance. I was also the worst at saving money. Each Friday I got $2. I would spend Fridays trying to think about what I could buy for only $2. It never really occurred to me that I could save my $2 and have $4 the next week and then $6 the next. This was a foreign concept to me.
There are not very many useful things that can be bought with only $2. So basically, I had a ton of junk as a kid. I mostly bought whatever kids in the neighborhood were selling on my street (their old toys, pretty rocks, friendship bracelets, etc.) and pound puppies. I had a pretty large selection of pound puppies. It was awesome.
One day my whole perspective on spending my allowance was changed. Mom had taken us to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to run some errands and Dennis and I were wandering around the store. We ended up in the blanket section where we found something magical. It was the softest most wonderful blanket in the whole wide world, and there were two of them. They were chenille, which even sounded luxurious and expensive. Of course our first thought was that Mom would buy one for each of us. We were wrong. When we showed the luscious blanket to Mom she looked at the price tag and then looked at us and said, "Well, save your money." So I glanced at the price tag. The blanket cost $20! I was going to have to save my allowance for 10 whole weeks to get it. That was pretty unimagineable.
6 weeks later I had $12 and Mom was making another trip to Bed, Bath, Beyond. Dennis and I headed straight for the blanket section, hoping our blanket was on sale. Unfortunately, the chenille blankets were not on sale. However, there were some fleece blankets that were on sale for $10. I definitely had enough money for that, and they were very soft too. I made the executive decision to buy the fleece blanket and spare myself the luxury of chenille. Dennis did the same.
I guess I did not really learn a lesson about saving up my money, because I could not even wait 4 more weeks to get the blanket I really wanted, and to this day I continue to struggle with saving money. In this particular case I think I made the right decision. Even as I am writing this I am wrapped up in the most comfortable green fleece blanket; it is the same one that I bought at Bed, Bath, and Beyond that day. I bet the chenille blanket wasn't even that soft anyway.