Here is it is.... January 30th and since January 1st I've been asked by my 16-year-old for:
$90 for a graphing calculator for the calculus class
$85 for school yearbook (and price goes up 2/1 by $15..she didn't tell me any of this until now)
$30 for hoodie for yearbook club
$15 for drama t-shirt for spring production... which she has exactly 2 lines in and will not be on the stage any other time.
Total: $220.
I bought the calculator as it was necessary and I know she'll use it again in college. I've offered to pay half of the yearbook if she'll raise the other half. For the shirts I've told her to raise the money herself. The drama team is also looking to possibly go to New York for a few days to take in shows in May and gosh only knows what that would cost... if it gets approved.
She doesn't work and says if she gets a part-time job then she can't do the drama production as they practice 3 days a week until 8 p.m. .... well hello she has only 2 lines in it and isn't even in any other scenes.
I told her to get a job or start offering to babysit for money. I'm tired of being nickel-and-dimed to death for fru-fru non-essential expenses.... especially since we just spent $700 on car repairs and $250 for surgery on the dog (abscess on foot - she stepped on something at some point and messed herself up) and medical bills are coming in from my husband's numerous medical tests he had in November. I'm not going to pay for her to go to New York either when that would probably take out entire family vacation money for the summer. Once those numbers come in we'll offer to pay a portion of the cost but that's it.
She also insists she wants to go to college out of state, and her dad and I have also told her she has to figure out how to pay for that because we're not going in debt for that when she can get a free education from the lottery in our state by going to a state school. She doesn't do any volunteer work, play sports or have any special talents that would qualify her for scholarships.
I told her that it's time to grow up and realize there is no money tree in our back yard, and I'm not going to bust my butt working extra jobs to buy these things for her. |
