Why do people spend money on unnecessary things, especially when they have a credit card to support those purchases? It seems like this is a regular occurrence in this day and age that can be best backed up by an experience from a few years ago.
My best friend in high school had $500 to spend at her favorite clothing store each month.
Her father had given her a department store credit card, and she was not allowed to go over this limit.
Every month her father paid off the credit card, and every month she would load it up with new clothing charges.
I don't recall ever seeing her in the same outfit twice, and many of her clothes had never left her closet, where they hung with their original tags remaining.
For me, it is hard to understand spending so much money on simple things like clothes.
I'm sure it was great for her at the time, as every young girl loves to buy clothes, but I wonder what lifelong lessons she learned about money.
What happened, for example, when her father stopped paying for the credit card? In my opinion, it is critical to impose some limits on children's' spending.
Limits should be appropriate for the child's age as well as your family's circumstances, but any limits will help teach children the value of a dollar.
Our family did not have quite as much money growing up, but we got by.
My parents provided me with $100 to spend on clothes at any store I wished.
This is when I first began to appreciate choices.
My favorite purchase was my Guess jeans.
As you can imagine, this did not leave me with a great deal of money for the rest of my clothes.
At that time, Guess jeans cost me $42, but to me they were worth every penny.
Because I loved them so much and knew I could not buy more whenever I wanted, I took care of them and they lasted a long time.
I learned a valuable lesson about money with those Guess jeans.
I had to make sacrifices on how many clothes I could have, and that is an important lesson in life.