"Money Bags" follow-up

Yesterday I wrote about wishing I were rich and that I had a stockpile of money so as to have unlimited funding for all of my wants and needs. As I've thought about that post over the past 24 hours, I have a few more thoughts to add to it. First, I'm going to start by sharing a quote that I recently saw somewhere and liked:

"We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we DON'T have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we DO have."

There wasn't a lot of money to go around when I was growing up since my parents raised our large family of nine (seven girls plus Mom and Dad) on a single income (my mom worked as a stay-at-home mom). I often remember wishing for more – more clothes, more gadgets, more "things", more opportunities. There were so many things that I thought would be fun to do, but when opportunities came about I didn't even give it a second thought if I knew it cost money. But what I never stopped to realize and appreciate at that time was that I always had everything I needed. I didn't have a lot extra, but I had everything I needed. I definitely didn't have all of the things that some of the people I knew had (especially families that only had a few kids), but I'm sure I had a lot more than many people I knew.

When I was 16 I got my first job. I loved working because I could buy myself many of the things I wanted. I'll share one example. When I was 18 I bought my first (and only) car*. In high school a lot of my friends had their own car, but their parents either bought it for them, or helped them make the payments. At the time I thought how nice it would be to have a car just given to me by my parents. However, after buying my own car I realized how much more I appreciated it since I bought it with my own money. I'm so glad I had to work for what I wanted. I don't think most kids have to work enough for what they want these days and they get sucked into the "entitlement trap" where they think they are entitled to the best of the best because that's what "everyone" else has.

Looking back, I'm so grateful that I grew up not having all of the things I wanted because I now appreciate things so much more than I would if I'd grown up always having the best of everything. So when you're a parent, what do you do when you want to give your child everything, but you know it's not good for them?

*Someone recently left a comment on my blog asking me what kind of car I was driving when I had my accident. In 2002 I bought a 1998 Chevy Prizm. Although the brand of the car was Chevy, it was Toyota made, so my mom and I felt good about buying it knowing it was a Toyota made car. 

You know, I had my car for almost 18 months and I never even took a picture of it. I wish I would've! The only pictures I have of it are post accident, but I'll post a few of them anyway: