Christmas Came Over Labor Day Weekend

With Jada on the doorstep of 2nd grade, we decided to go high-end on her backpack, to see if it would last a few years (she'd gone through two cheap backpacks in her first two years of grade school).  So we were pleasantly surprised to find a great backpack at L.L. Bean way discounted. 

Jada's eagerness in getting a fancy new backpack was tempered, though, when she saw the one that was on sale and noted that her friend had the same backpack.  Hmmm, I thought: this is going to come up again a lot in this child's life.  The desire to be different always seems to lead to more purchases!

I cajoled her into the on-sale backpack, appealing to the money management principles we'd been discussing ever since she started keeping a ledger of her finances.  She said OK without much fuss.  As a reward, I told her we would take a portion of our savings and go to Five Below and get some things to "trick out" her backpack.  This made her very happy.

We finally got around to going, and Aaron came along too so he got a few bucks of spending cash as well.  He opted for a $3.50 3-D dragon book and a $1 set of four water guns.  Jada had ten bucks to play with, and immediately landed on a $5 set of stickers and notepads, a $2 bracelet, and a $1 pair of Pink Panther flip-flops.  She couldn't quite figure out how to spend that last two bucks, so I told her to bank it for later. 

Christmas came early in the Huang household, as the kids got to play with their new toys later that day after they were done with their chores.  Always nice to budget to pay max price for something nice, find it on sale, and get some goodies with some of the savings.