Save Your Pennies

Whenever one of the  Offspring develop a deep desire for some item I am unwilling to buy, like a Lego City set, or some item of technology that I don't really understand and definitely don't want to pay for, my response to them is to "save your pennies".  I'm sure by now they're both tired of hearing it but they know that's my final answer. I am the Mom of Saving Your Money to Buy Your Own Stuff.

Recently, the Son of Never Stops Eating came over to me while I was busy doing nothing, looking sad.  Mom, he told me, we're all doomed! The world is ending!

Oh, crap, I thought. He wants to talk about politics.

What's up? I asked him. You're too young to be so cynical and pessimistic. 

I don't have the new Lego City bank robbery set yet, he said, mournfully.  Oh well, I told him.  That is a sad story. Save your pennies.  He rolled his eyes and skulked away.

Apparently he took me literally about the "saving your pennies" thing because he has discovered a previously overlooked fountain of funding: lost change.  This happened while we were at the car wash, washing mud off my car and my hiking boots.  He looked down at the ground and found four pennies. 

MOM! he yelled! I found money! He picked the pennies up and showed them to me.  I can use this for my Lego City bank robbery set! he yelled gleefully.  What's better than free money, after all? Even better, this was really clean free money because it had been washed off by the car wash. 

That's right, I told him.  Only $79.96 to go, including sales tax.

On the way home, he started looking around the floor of the back seat of my car.  Then he started looking around the driveway. He found another penny.  Then he asked me if I had any spare change in the car.  Yes, I told him.  He held out his hand.  I forked over the $1.25 in quarters left over from the car wash. 

Then he went in the house, got the flashlight and started looking under the furniture.  I suggested that he clean his room;  he might find some spare change underneath the piles of clothes and miscellaneous stuff.  I drew the line at going after the change in my purse; that's my coffee money.

The next day, we decided to walk down to the park after stopping at our Adopt-a-Spot to do some trash pickup.  While we were waiting to cross the street, he looked down at the roadway and sitting there, right in the middle of oncoming traffic, was a gleaming penny.  He was so impatient to pick it up he was practically jumping up and down.

Relax, I told him.  No one is going to take it while you're standing right here. What do you think is going to happen, an eagle is going to come and grab it off the street with its talons while you stand here, waiting for the cars to stop?

MOM! he said, exasperated. It's free money! Everyone likes free money!

I have no idea how much money he currently has in the change jar, but I feel confident that every stray penny, nickel, dime and quarter has been picked up in our house, in my car, on the sidewalk on his route to school, in every store we have been in, the park, the gym where he plays basketball, and every other place he has been in the last week.  No abandoned, lost or forgotten circle money is safe when he is around.

I admit, I am a little mom-proud.  After all, I did tell him to save his pennies- and he is doing exactly that.