Stupid!

Details of a youth temple trip showed that the group planned to take the kids to lunch, asking each kid to bring between $5 an $10. The leaders proudly told of how they were going to make sure to identify families that might have a hard time with that and offer to pay for their meal. I piped up in defense of poor kids saying that I was that kid, and I would have rather gone hungry than let an adult know there was a problem.

The adults involved didn't seem to grasp the idea that they would humiliate the kids. I didn't even bring up how irresponsible it was to take kids out for fast food at all. Oh man. I feel sorry for the leaders when my kids are in youth programs. I suggested that they could take the kids to a Little Cesar's so the kids could get and even share, cheap "Hot and Ready" pizzas. Their "frugal" plan is to take the kids to Chick-Fila. There are so many aspects of this that bother me. The price of 2 chick-fila meal a week could fund 4 years of tuition at BYU. Add a part time job to pay rent and food and you can graduate debt free!

Year Balance
1 $742.91
2 $1,534.51
3 $2,379.12
4 $3,280.29
5 $4,241.82
6 $5,267.75
7 $6,362.38
8 $7,530.32
9 $8,776.48
10 $10,106.10
11 $11,524.77
12 $13,038.44
Final Savings Balance: $13,038.44

So many people are in massive debt, but still eating out all the time, and chatting on their phones as they drive their fancy cars. Heaven forbid we ever do something like pack a lunch. Also, do you really want the "poor kids" getting comfortable with the idea that they can just ask the adults to buy their food? Just weeks before these same adults were complaining of a girl that came to mutual activities asking everyone for food, and if she could have it all, and if she could take it home... I wonder where she learned that? Probably from well meaning people who taught her from an early age, to ask for food! And sure kids shouldn't go hungry. But you can't teach a kid to have no pride, and then wonder at their shocking lack of manners.

As a mom on a budget, whenever G goes on a field trip, that comes out of our grocery budget. If we were on food stamps, that cash would come out of our gas, rent, utilities budget. My kids wear thrift store clothes, or hand me downs. Dressing in fancy clothes is not worth going in debt for. Eating out is not worth going into debt for. Ballet lessons are not worth a mom going to work for. Our ward is very blue collar. Most families seem to have nice cars, iphones, and 2 income (blue collar) jobs. To me that is really, really sad. I won't even get started on the idea of food storage, because, you know, nobody can afford that.

We make choices every day that have long term consequences.  When people eat out they are in fact choosing chick-fila over financial stability.