Before the school year started I topped up the child’s app so she can have ice cream on Fridays at $1 each.
I figured $20.00 would last us until Christmas
Yeahh…No.
It did not.
Let me explain. One of the things we learned when she started school was that we needed to add money to her account for Friday Ice Cream Day.
Great, no problem. If she makes it through the week she gets a treat.
This year she’s a little older, smarter, and only just a few weeks into the school year I get a notification that her balance is low.
Wait. What?!!
How is this possible?
As concerned parents do - we asked her. We told her she wasn’t in trouble, and she told us that she was getting a snack or treat at lunch occasionally.
“How often is occasionally?” I asked.
“You know, a few times” she told me. “I get a bag of chips or something”
Oh? Really?
Let’s look at the app.
As you see on the above receipt that fruit roll-ups are popular for the first grade crowd this year. At least they are for ours.
We told her she can’t be having a fruit roll up every day. It’s not the money, it’s for her teeth as those things are sugar advertised as fruit.
We have fruit at home. As I write this, the choices are bananas, apples, oranges and some grapes. She also gets sent with a snack of applesauce daily so she’s far from starving.
Again, we told her that she’s not in trouble, but she can’t have sugary snacks every day because of her teeth. We have had no cavities to date and we want to keep it that way.
We did tell her we can make Wednesday snack day and she can get any snack from the cafeteria she wants and charge it to the account on Wednesdays. I figure that’s fair and Wednesday is a good day to look forward to and make the rest of the week a little smoother and sweeter.
Let this be a lesson to all adults: Don’t give your child a credit card.
It’s never a sweet ending.
Keep charging on,
TH and Co.