Skip to main content

TIFU by trying to teach my daughter how to save

This literally happened today, but of course context is king etc etc.

My (37M) daughter (3.5F) likes to buy things when we go out. If she sees something she likes, she'll ask us to get it for her, which is how we have 15 water bottles at home in different shades of pink and a bunch of random squeezy toys. Stems from a variety of reasons, but mainly mixed messages from all of us who care for her (I'm strict, my wife is moderate, my MIL swings between extremes)

As a first step, I decided to start her on an allowance, and she can't spend more than that. She understands the concept well enough, and she generally doesn't spend more than she's given; and if she forgets we gently remind her that she's spent her allowance and she needs to wait till next week, and she's not fussed.

But greedy me wanted more - I wanted to teach her to save (she tends to blast her full "allowance" at one shot, although it isn't very much to begin with). And telling her that whatever she doesn't spend this week rolls over to next week didn't bear any fruit. So I did the following:

1) I bought her a little piggy bank and labelled it "Daddy Bank"; 2) I put her "allowance" inside; and 3) I told her that whatever was left inside would be doubled the next week, as a form of "investment interest".

Today, I see her rummaging around her red packets (from Lunar New Year, this is Singapore), and wonder what she is up to. Next thing you know, she takes a whole wad of money and dumps it in the daddy bank, to invest and double. I thought she would leave maybe 2, 3 bucks inside. There is now 30+ inside that is awaiting doubling. Hoo boy. What have I done?

TL ; DR: tried to encourage my daughter to save via a "daddy bank", forgot about her extra funds, now on the hook for 10 times the amount I planned to give ger.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

TIFU - Don’t do what I did

On Sunday morning Aug. 24th, I awoke to discover a large blind spot in my right eye, which turned out to be what is called wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). It has resulted in a very significant, permanent loss of vision in that eye. Although I maintain good peripheral vision, whatever I focus on at best is very blurry, and mostly disappears. I can barely make out the large E at the top of the eye chart. If this happens to my left eye I’ll be unable to read or drive. It turns out that I missed the opportunity that I had to prevent this from becoming a serious problem because I failed to report what appeared to be minor changes in my vision. In the weeks prior to August I had noticed that what I knew to be straight lines appeared to my right eye to have a little waviness. I also noticed that the color of my front lawn, which I could see through the window from my recliner,  was subdued, looked almost gray, in my right eye. So I scheduled an eye exam, which revealed the p...

TIFU by getting suspended for 2 days by my front office in school.

I (13M) am an African American student at Jeannette junior high who had got suspended for 2 days here. I was in math class minding my business until my teacher had told me to go to the main office, which posed no problem to me. As i went down there, the people of the front office had stopped me and made me get a new ID (yes, we have id's.) so i had asked them if i could maybe do a different alternative and call my mother to let her bring the Id here, even then, the Id isn't that important. So, although i was talking to them in a calm manner and not showing any signs of rebellion, they had threatened to call the police on me without thinking twice before calling my parents. This is where i started getting angry, and even then now the black peers agree that could have been a racially motivated action. They then told me to sit in the office conference room because of that, leading into more anger. They had then called my mother who had came over to the school didn't even let ...

TIFU by putting my already skinny jeans in the dryer on high heat.

TL;DR: Was stupid and didn't realize I put my clothes on extra high heat in the dryer. Had to rock skintight skinny jeans all day with tighty whities (only clean pair I had since I procrastinate doing laundry like crazy). I guess the constant wedgies and squishing are punishment for my stupidity. Honestly don’t know who else to blame but myself for this. I’m a scatterbrained guy so I literally put the highest setting on a load with most of my clothes, and my skinny jeans that I was planning to wear today. You can probably already see where this is going, but somehow I didn’t. For context, these jeans were already pushing the limits of what could reasonably be called wearable. They fit, technically, but only in the sense that I could get them on with enough determination and a bit of strategic breathing. Sitting down in them was more of a commitment than a casual action. Still, they looked good, and I had convinced myself that discomfort was just part of the aesthetic. So this m...