Childish Misunderstandings About Money – Meme

I was tagged! My first tag. Very Exciting.

I was tagged by centsprout on the Childish Misunderstandings About Money meme. I was racking my brains this morning trying to remember what I used to think about money when I was a kid. Nada.

I do have an instance to illustrate how much my idea of ‘a lot of money’ has changed since I was a child.

When my sister and I were kids my parents convinced us we were poor. We weren’t really, but I guess it’s their way of making us think about our spending and need versus want. Being the younger one that means I don’t get a lot of new stuff.

I learnt to skate on my sister’s old skates. One day I outgrew my sister. Mum took me to Canadian Tire and got my first pair of skates for $29.99 (I did not understand about taxes then). The next day we had a skating field trip and I got to wear my brand new skates! It was amazing.
On the way home I put them down to tie my shoe laces, got distracted, forgot the skates, and walked home with my friends. When I realized I didn’t have my skates I had no idea where I left them. It took me 2 hours of retracing my steps to find them. It was the worst 2 hours in my life. My world was going to come to an end. I couldn’t face my mother. $30 was SO MUCH MONEY!

Compare that to present day. My cell phone bill is about $30 a month. A few months ago when I was traveling for business I used my phone and ran up about $50 on $1 - $1.5 per minute long distance. I couldn’t even be bothered to take that up with the finance department to expense it because it’s too much hassle.

How times have changed. I use about a pair of skates per month just on phone bills and just recently about 9 pairs of skates to buy a camera. Maybe if I got back to my childhood way of thinking about money I could save even more.