THAT OLD GREEN MAGIC

When my son Tom was quite young, his Grandma gave him $2.00 to spend at the flea market. The first item he saw that intrigued him was a newly minted dollar bill sold at the booth of a coin dealer. Tom liked the looks of the crisp, plastic encased dollar bill. Although too young to do any serious collecting, he bought it with his $2.00.

As the day wore on and his fascination with the dollar bill wore off, he passed a booth selling toys. He saw a 60-cent squirt gun that looked better to him at that moment than the crisp, newly minted, plastic encased dollar bill. He used the $2.00, $1.00 bill to buy the 60-cent squirt gun.

As we were driving home, my wife Jean and I were mulling over the morning events. We realized we had not given birth to a Warren Buffet (or maybe even a Jimmy Buffet for that matter). We, his sensible parents, had walked around a flea market for over two hours. We had seen many interesting items we would have liked to have had but being practical and business-like, we were going to save our money until we got well into our 90s -- then we could get whatever we wanted.

Tom, having parlayed his $2 to 60-cent squirt gun plus change, did not demonstrate good business -- not good business in the financial sense. But in the big-picture sense, Tom traded in money that has no value in itself and all day long he had in his possession what to him did have value. His parents, on the other hand, drove home practical, business-like and empty-handed.

What good is your money, whatever the amount, if you don't have your squirt gun when you want it?


Lesson: A dollar saved is smart. A dollar spent is fun.