That's my girl!!

We received a less than normal tax return this year.  Hotsauce wisely made some changes at the beginning of 2012 so that we would receive more of our money during the year instead of lending it to the government.

That being said, it was still a very nice return. :)

We decided to budget our return before we wasted it... in years past Hotsauce and I would both make separate plans and then get mad at the other one for not knowing what the other was thinking!!  Another thing that I would do would be to drop hints of things that I "needed" ... aka new shoes, a dishwasher, always leather furniture, and who knows what else.  Hotsauce would agree that these would be great things to do if we paid off this bill or that bill first.  Once the money was deposited all bets were off and since there was no real plan our tax return was nickeled and dimed away.

Maybe you've been there?

Well, not this year.  Every dollar is budgeted.  Not all of it for something fun... but not all of it for the debt snowball either.

One plan that Hotsauce had was to bless each child with $50.  This budgeting stuff is hard and they have had to miss out on some fun things.  So shouldn't they get the chance to have some money of their own to decide how they'd like to spend it?

Hotsauce walked in from the bank carrying the cash in his hand.  Emma spied it immediately and asked (jokingly) if she could have some.  You should have seen her face when her daddy handed her a fifty dollar bill. 

That was fun.

Word spread fast.  And soon others were asking if they too could have some.  As this played out, Hannah, the oldest, wasn't asking if she could have some.  On the contrary she looked rather disturbed, as though she might start crying.

I asked her if she was going to ask Daddy for some money and she shrugged her shoulders and turned her face away from me.

Something was wrong with this kid.

When we pressed a little harder she started crying... she gets that from her mom... and finally she said that she didn't want the money.

We tried guessing why she didn't want it, worried that she might be concerned that we needed it more than she did... but no that wasn't it either.  So why wouldn't she take the money?

She finally told us...

"I don't want it because I didn't earn it."

Yep.  That's my girl.  Nine years old and far more responsible than most adults in America.

Smart, pretty, responsible, funny and most importantly loves Jesus.
Boom goes the dynamite.