Another thought along the lines of scarcity value…

I have boys ages 12, 10 and 8. Let’s say I take them to Borders so that I can sit around, have a cup of coffee, read a magazine, and let my hair down, at least for a moment. In the olden days, I’d tell them that after I was done, I’d buy them a book or CD or something. That something, a few days later, would be littered in some corner of some room, never to be a gee-gaw that was treasured, but rather a figurative dust bunny scrapped to a shadow life and doomed to a quick end as landfill.

Too often, I played the role of executioner, throwing many things into the garbage. I realized that this stuff was rarely missed; my boys simply didn’t care for these idle thingies. I did know that they could care for the money that provided for this stuff. So now when I go to Borders with my boys, I tell them, “you can either have $8 or you can buy something.” More than half the time, they take the $8, and still enjoy wandering the store looking for something of interest. If they buy something, it actually matter to them. The item is enjoyed not neglected. In the end, I save money, I have less to clean up, and most importantly there isn’t some abused, abandoned gee-gaw that otherwise could have been a piece of treasure to some other person.

d.a