3/29 Expressions

I have found a silver lining to this "economic downturn". I have always been a bit on the frugal side. More so than the rest of my family. And to some extent - the rest of the family (before the "downturn") tried to keep it a secret. Although I do talk about money with my daughter, and for the most part, I think she gets it pretty well for someone her age - I secretly found most of her cohorts' attitude about money disappointing. Last year, we had sleepovers, took groups of kids to events, etc. Did they say thank-you? No. Did they offer to pay? No. You get the idea. Things started to change last summer. We took one of my daughter's friends on a work/vacation with us. She is one of the more "sensible" of the friends. Anyway, to cut down on food expenses, I bought bagged salad and salad dressing to eat at our condo. By the last day, after everyone else used the dressing - it was empty. I just dumped a bit of milk (it was "Ranch"), swished it around and poured it on my salad. My daughter's friend was amazed. She said she would never have thought of it and at her house, they would just throw the bottle out and buy a new one. Fast forward this month. My husband volunteered to drive to an event since the school could not afford to rent a bus. My husband had two additional passengers. One a neighbor's child. My husband was taken aback as this child offered up gas money - and both thanked my husband for volunteering to drive. My husband did not take the money - but, I think she is learning something. Then another child asked my daughter to spend the night. My daughter replied that she couldn't - but perhaps they could go to a movie. The girl chimed in, "I did a bunch of chores this weekend", and my mom took me to the movies yesterday. I don't want to do any more chores this week and I don't want you to pay for me, so, I will pass". Push me over with a feather. I think lessons are being taught in the home that weren't in the past. Lessons we've all heard before - "money doesn't grow on trees" and "don't take things for granted" - and probably a whole lot more. And just to drive my family crazy this weekend, I picked dandelion greens (our back yard is fenced and we do not use any types of chemicals on the lawn) for a stir fry that I will enjoy on my own. Planting vegetable seeds will have to wait for a sunnier day - hopefully sometime this week.