Link du Jour:

100 Frugal Gifts - BibleMoneyMatters.com

I am revisiting the small income, encroaching expenses situation that gets a few people into debt. Especially during the holiday season when the PLEAS drop into the mailbox like, oh, raindrops in Thailand and everyone has a hand out. Feed the hungry! Food banks in dire need! Church needs to retire its debt! School at a deficit! Pay for what you listen to!

To work on his writing practice, I gave my kid an option to write to Santa Claus: the number of electronic games and systems was jaw-dropping. "If I am a bad kid, just send me one. If I am an okay kid give me three Pokemon Nintendo games. If I am a good kid please send me six." He used to not believe in Santa Claus, which was better for us because when he understood everything came from Mom and Dad, he wouldn't make demands that would clean us out because the guilt would hurt too much.

My family was poor too and deeply in debt. We looked through the Sears Catalog: back then you could make a kid happy for $10.78. Now it's what, $60? We're in a much better situation now--we own a home so no moving around due to rising rents and slow child payments, gas prices don't bother us, no car payments. He has a college fund, I never did. He has stock in Berkshire Hathaway. But what child is ever moved by the poverty his parents experienced as children?

There's a number of presents that a child will gleefully receive before the joy precipitates and the unwrapping is merely perfunctory. I forget if it is Vicki Robin or Center for a New American Dream who gave the number but it's three.

I am not giving him three electronic items. He wants slippers, he can have one electronic game, maybe a book. There must be children out there who swear they've been good but get very little during the winter holidays. They suffer from no fault of their own. My child is no more deserving than they.

And nobody receives karma points for digging themselves into a position where they can no longer help other people but must focus on their own debt solutions. That's why I pay more toward my HELOC than I do to charities.