Save Your Pennies and Your Dollars Will Take Care of Themselves

Advice for kids: Save Your Pennies!

Over the last few weeks, I've been speaking with my children about saving money and planning for the future.

When I was around 10-years-old, I remember my Uncle George telling me about an elderly woman who was in the same store as he who was buying a ring.  She was dressed nicely and wore expensive jewelry, so she was well to do according to my uncle's assessment.

The price tag on her jewelry purchase was $399.99.  When the clerk entered the amount into the cash register as $400 even, she stopped him because the price was wrong.

Uncle George was confused as to why she would object to rounding up to the next penny. He felt embarrassed not only for the cashier but also the woman who was squabbling over a single penny.  My uncle reached into his pocket and offered the lady some change, attempting to make peace about the situation.

"You don't understand, sir," the elderly lady explain. "I have the money, more than enough change of my own to cover the price.  This isn't about principle or feelings. This is about business. I didn't come in here all willy nilly to buy a ring on impulse. I have been eyeing this ring for more than six months. I knew the price and I planned accordingly."

"Yes ma'am, I can understand that," my uncle replied. "I didn't mean to offend you. I just wanted to hand you some change in case you are short."

"No sir, you didn't offend me," the elderly lady smiled in reply. "I'm trying to help you.  Here you are offering to give away your loose change to help a stranger out who doesn't need it.  I have what I have because I know the secret to wealth."

"There's a secret?" my uncle inquired.

"If you save your pennies, your dollars will take care of themselves," the elderly lady answered with a grin.

After the cashier corrected the price and the lady left the store with her purchase, Uncle George reflected on what she meant. The answer seems simple on the surface, every one hundred pennies saved is a dollar, so if you save every penny you can at every opportunity, it will add up to more over time.

As I explained this to my kids, I took it a step further. When your mind is set to thrifty mode because you are watching your pennies, it allows you to save even more money that you can invest into products of quality that will not simply break after having them for a month. Replacing stuff that wears out quickly will cost you more in the long run always.

Also, if you are watching your pennies, it will help eliminate impulse buying and thus buyers remorse. Buyers remorse will cause depression and people tend to spend money when they feel unhappy.  After a while, they can become addicted to impulse buying and the cycle of having to spend more wasteful money leading to more buyers remorse.

I wish I would have had the opportunity to have sat down with this woman. Her simple five-minute exchange with my uncle not only changed his life but those he shared the wisdom she imparted to him, like myself.

2005: You Remind Me of the Babe

When my oldest daughter, Luci, was 4-years-old, one of our favorite pastimes was to sit down and watch Jim Henson's Labyrinth while her mom looked after our newborn, Lilly. I'm not kidding you, we all must have watched the movie more than fifty times.

In the Fall of 2005, we were living in Smyrna, TN. Late one night, we were heading to the grocery story when we drove nearby the bowling alley just off Sam Ridley.  We saw a carnival had setup and Luci became excited.

We stopped and purchased some tickets to let her get on the kiddie rides. Lilly was resting peacefully in her stroller and my wife was able to unwind while I focused primarily on keeping up with Luci.

We saw an airplane ride and there was no line.  Luci wanted to ride in the airplane, but there were no other children there.  My wife and I were both very hesitant to let her go up by herself.  Yes, we were still in that very over-protective phase. Finally, reluctantly we agreed when the ride operator assured us that he would stop the ride immediately if anything went amiss.

Luci was daring, no fear in her little eyes and she was ready "for the rush". She climbed into one of the planes, was fastened securely and off she went.  About one minute later, just as the airplanes jetted from the ground, high above our heads, we heard what my wife and I thought was screaming.  I knew for certain Luci was freaking out at being so high from the ground.  My wife asked the operator to stop the ride.

Just as the ride started to slow down a bit, we were finally able to see and hear Luci.  She was leaning forward with her hands outstretched into the air and she was singing "Magic Dance" from the Labyrinth movie.  The part where she would belt out "left my baby blue" was what we heard that sounded like screaming.

Knowing she was happy and safe, we asked the operator to continue the ride.  People from all around began to gather to watch Luci and to take pictures (and of course, I didn't have my camera with me).  She was such a ham.  When the ride stopped, all of the airplanes were filled to capacity and the ride operator let Luci get a second go-round on the house.

Some days, I was I could shrink this teenage version of her back down to that wide-eyed little girl once more.  This is one of my favorite memories of my daughter growing up.

~Will

Summertime Is Here

This past week, the family and I have spent a lot of time outside, grilling and enjoying the sunshine. We got the swimming pool set up, as well as the kiddie pool for our little man.

We do like to grill year-round, but we always pick up the pace when the summer approaches. Usually, we avoid the sweltering humidity of living in the South whenever we can by mostly staying active outdoors as the evenings start to cool.

This year has been different. I believe I've been outside more during the mid-day hours these past two weeks than I have in the past two years.  The children are older and after all of us remained cooped up during all of these storms that have come through in the last two months, we are making up for lost time.

I know I will end up spending a fortune in sunblock this summer, but honestly, we all feel much better than we have in a long time.

Bumps and Bruises

I was neck deep into writing this past week, as well as promoting the book blitz for Heir of the Blood King in July, but all of that came to a screeching halt early Friday morning.

You would expect that with having four children between the ages of three and thirteen that I would be accustomed to emergency room visits. Yes, when my oldest was little, it seemed that I was overly concerned and if there was a sniffle, we were running to the doctor's office.

On Friday, however, we had our first real scare.  It wasn't life or death, but it was definitively serious. Our ten year old, Lilly, who is also our most emotionally sensitive child, was chasing after her little brother to stop him from hurting himself when incidentally, she slid, landed on her knee and busted her knee open requiring eight stitches along the bottom.

I was not as prepared for such an event as I would have liked to have been.  My emotions run the gambit because she was in serious pain.  I had some stitches on my hand when I was around fourteen, but I never had an injury as severe as the one she had.  I wanted to take the pain away.  I wanted to make things better.

Lilly and I loaded up and headed to the ER, where despite her pain, she remained strong and in good spirits.  I got a wheelchair from the nurse and while I filled out the paperwork, Lilly decided to take a spin and did everything she could to distract herself from the pain.

The real agony didn't begin until they called us back. Lilly was so calm and insightful and answered all of the doctor's questions in a very mature way. When the nurse began to clean the wound, that's when the screaming began.  She cried out, "Oh god, why me?"  Her torment didn't end there.  The way the wound was flayed, the doctor had to give her a series of shots around it so he could cinch the wound closed. He had told her that it would only be three or four more seconds of pain, and yet it took more than five minutes to properly numb the injury.

The nurse held down her feet and I held Lilly's hands. I looked into her eyes and offered her messages of assurances and of love and she kept saying to me, "It's not your fault, Daddy."

I felt like it was my fault.  I felt like there was more that I should have done.  I asked myself, "Oh god, why me?"  "Why my baby girl?"

After it was all said and done, Lilly sat up and looked up at me with pride.  She said, "Luci never got hurt like this before."  That's true, her older, stronger sister had never endured as much pain as she. I told her she was correct.

That was when Lilly stated to me, "This is my war wound.  It proves that I'm strong."

I looked back at her quite astonished. There was a truth to what she had said to me.  When we went to go get ice cream, you could tell that she didn't have a care in the world and she wasn't going to let her experience take away an opportunity to hang out with her daddy and have him all to herself.  It was an experience that she got to share with me and she knew that she was loved.

It has only been a couple of days since the event and she has been made stronger by the experience. She is more confident and independent, no matter how much all of us beg her to stay off her wounded knee.  Something small, and yet so significant fundamentally changed for our little Lilly Bean.

Lesson here for me was this.  Yes, the deepest wounds hurt the most. When we take responsibility and meet the challenge head on, it will make us stronger.

Lilly Bean is stronger than she was before the incident.  She has the war wound, the battle scar to prove just how strong she is compared to the older sister she had admired so much more than herself.  She is now the one that has earned the respect of her older sister who cannot relate to her experience of pain.

Our wounds and triumph over adversity is the source of our self confidence and strength.  No one can take that away from my Lilly Bean.

Life: Fight The Good Fight

As a kid, I always enjoyed board games.  I played Monopoly for hours, Uno, Risk, Sorry and yes, even Life.

Being a child, I thought the concept of Life was simple. I didn't think about a real job, getting married, kids and retirement. 

But the older I get, I realize how much a game living your life can be. I'm not talking about what events happen to you, but how your perceptions about those events fundamentally shape you.

For example, you can have a challenge enter your life and you can go with the "Woe is me" attitude or the "What doesn't kill me, makes me stronger" mentality.  Your choice of how you accept what comes your way, much like which paths you choose when rolling the dice on the board game, guide you to where you want to end up.

So let the backstabbers in your life do their thing.  They are petty and they don't control how you will take that experience and grow.  Your critics will do their best to create calamity and ruin.  The reason that they do this is because like the bad choices they made, their characters are flawed because they choose to be the victims instead of growing from their experiences.

I view challenges and criticism in a different way.  I take what I can and find something constructive to do with it.  Sometimes it fuels the fire to prove them wrong, other times, it helps me find critical flaws in myself and the things I do and I try to change those things that I don't like about myself. 

So don't be hurt, don't cry.  Yes, tears are important for healing and releasing the pain, but once you have processed what has happened, use the experience to grow, especially if the attacks are intended to change who you are.

You can fight the good fight and win the game of Life no matter what your dice roll result may be.

Aspiring Authors and Parenthood

So my almost 13 year old daughter sent my wife and I an email giving me permissions to a document she created on her Google Drive wanting comments and editing.  As I opened the document, I noticed right away that she wanted to write a story, something more than just free writing because she tried to visually format it using spaces and returns.

As I read her manuscript, I could clearly see her vision for the story she wanted to tell. My OCD kicked in, however, and I rushed through, adjusting her margins, etc. cleaning up the formatting problems that I saw.

Luci was very grateful for the assistance, but I could tell she was upset. I was detracted from the idea she had by its presentation.  As a writer, it is important to put ideas first, for that is the rare commodity of creativity.

My lesson here is this:  Next time, I will sit down with my daughter and go through the document with her exploring the concept.  Once that is done to both of our satisfactions, I will show her how to properly format her document.

Don't ever let the structure of a work detract you from the creative process. If the only way that you can get out the words in your head is with a crayon on your door step, you need to do that. Be sure to take lots of pictures though so you can dictate your work into a word processor after you are finished.