A Minor Snag

I thought we were making progress. It seemed we were on the right track. Michael had chosen a goal to buy a PSP, and he was going to do chores to earn and then save his own money. I even printed out a progress chart to give him a visual of how much he had saved and how much further he’d have to go to reach his goal of $160. I was really proud of him for choosing such a considerable challenge. Money tends to fly from his fingers faster than you can say shopping spree. That’s why I thought the chart would be such a good motivator for him, so he could watch his money accumulate as he grew closer to reaching his goal. $160 is a lot for a little guy to save, especially for a fast spender like Michael. I wanted him to know he could set realistic goals for himself and realize those dreams with a little perseverance, determination, and discipline.

Then we hit a little snag yesterday. He’s had two DS’s, one broken, the other he bought himself last year on Black Friday. He also had a slew of games that he’d grown bored with. He wanted to go to Game Stop to see what they’d offer for a trade in. I tried to tell him he wouldn’t be happy with their offer since they’d been pretty stingy in the past when we traded in a couple other games he didn’t like. But once he has an idea in his head, it’s pretty difficult to get him to change tacks. So, he gathered up his good DS and put all his games back in their cases and off we went to Game Stop with his bag of booty.

I let him question the sales guy about the different PSP consoles: game capability, internet connection, cost (I thought for sure they’d charge way over what we could get at Wal-mart—wrong!), used vs. new, etc. Then they rang up Michael’s trade-ins at a whopping $175, plus change. I never expected that! So all of a sudden, Michael had more than enough money to not only buy a new console but plenty left over for games and he wouldn’t even have to touch the money he’d already accumulated from his birthday and a few weeks of chores. There went my plan for his goal setting right out the front door of Game Stop, washed away in the cold, grey, rainy afternoon. *Sigh* Home we went with his new PSP and a Need for Speed game. He saved the rest of his credit for more games later on.

So, he still has a good chunk of cash saved now but no idea of what to possibly spend it on. I’m anxious for him to choose another goal before the money starts screaming at him to go buy a new tin or two of Pokémon cards. But what? I know he’ll complain about how expensive games are for his PSP. He can be pretty tight at times but yet doesn’t bat an eyelash at whipping out fifteen bucks for Pokémon tins. He must have some internal limit set in his brain of acceptable expenditures, like I won’t spend more than $25 on jeans, shoes, or purses. I just can’t rationalize buying something more expensive than that. Probably one of the things Bill loves about me, I’m cheap! We’ll need to come up with something soon. That money won’t stay quiet for very long….

Time to come inside--brought all the plants in yesterday before the temps dip down into the thirties this weekend! Pretty chilly start to fall!