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More Thoughts on Good Stewardship

May 25th, 2007 at 03:01 pm

The topic of stewardship or how one makes the best use of one's money seems to be going round and round in my head these days. I feel it is for a reason, just not sure what the reason is yet. Anyway, I overheard an interesting (to me) exchange last evening while at my son's baseball game. As usual, the parents were sitting on the bleachers and siblings were playing on the nearby playground, begging for items from the snack bar, etc. Two girls (about age 8) had gone to the snack bar to get treats. They returned and each gave her mother her change. One mom saw that her daughter had two ice cream treats and asked her why she had gotten two. The little girl said that she had asked for something different but the people in the snack bar got confused. The mom then asked her if she even liked the one item, she replied I don't know. The mom's response to this was what I found interesting. She said "Oh well, you can try it and if you don't like it just throw it away." I just couldn't help wondering what she was teaching her daughter about waste with that attitude. To me, it was that it is okay to waste both money and things. Not what I want to teach my kids. Sure, it was only an ice cream treat that cost no more than 1.50 but there were so many other options. She could have gone back to the snack bar with her daughter and explained the confusion - they would have gladly taken it back or exchanged it for something else. She could have told her to just eat the one treat and offer the other to someone else. There were plenty of other childern who could have enjoyed it. The two girls went off to the picnic tables to eat so I don't know what became of the ice cream treat but I just couldn't stop thinking about the attitudes involved. Would she give her daughter money and tell her to just throw it away if they didn't have what she wanted? To me, it is not about not spending money or even how much money you do spend, it is about making the best use of your money and spending it on things that are important to you. Sometimes it will be paying bills, and sometimes it will be as simple as treating your kids at the ball game. But either way, shouldn't you still try to make the best use of it?

4 Responses to “More Thoughts on Good Stewardship”

  1. Ima saver Says:
    1180104314

    I certainly do agree with you!

  2. Joan.of.the.Arch Says:
    1180111028

    If you have more thoughts on the stewardship angle, I would be interested.

  3. monkeymama Says:
    1180111902

    Wow! I would feel the same.

    Just reminded me we were at a friend's for dinner the other night and I was going nuts because she kept leaving the water running in the sink when she wasn't using it. Stuff like that drives me batty - being wasteful in general.

  4. disneysteve Says:
    1180130758

    "To me, it is not about not spending money or even how much money you do spend, it is about making the best use of your money and spending it on things that are important to you."

    I think this is a great way of thinking. You are absolutely right. This is exactly what we strive to teach our daughter. We only get to spend each dollar one time, so we need to give some thought to how we spend it. That doesn't mean we can't go out and spend it on ice cream cones or toys or movie tickets. It doesn't mean every spare dollar needs to be sent to our investment accounts. It just means that we need to think if where we are spending it is something that matters to us at the time or if we'd rather save it to spend later.

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