The Rich Parents

Apparently, we're rich and never knew it.

I guess we brought this on ourselves partially with how much we spoil our baby.

We nearly had a heart attack when we got the cable bill for November.  $202 worth of pay per view.  I don't even know how you view that much in a month.  That is 1-2 per day.

problem 1
We had our cable set up requiring a passcode to use pay per view or R rated shows

problem 2
Kiddo rented movies that we have on DVD already anyway

problem 3
She purchased a couple to keep, one of which we already have on DVD

We approached kiddo about this and she said she didn't realize she'd spent that much.  Of course she didn't.  It was nickeled and dimed throughout the month.  We reminded her she wasn't suppose to use pay per view without permission regardless of whether it was 1 movie or 20.  We reminded her that occassionally we will say yes, but generally no, because most things will be free soon.  We also reminded her of which ones we have in the DVD collection.

She didn't figure out the passcode.  Apparently if you get the wrong passcode so many times, comcast resets the whole program, which means our tv's no longer had parental controls on it after she had the required number of failed password attempts.  Sorta defeats the purpose of having a passcode.  We called the cable company to get that problem fixed.

Consequence--
She wasn't allowed to watch TV without us until at least 1/2 of the bill had been worked off.  We had her do chores and she's in the final half now and helping me with laundry each week.

She worked her little heart out.

BUT....she said she didn't really get what the big deal was, that we're rich.

That opened up conversation for what things cost....ie. $200 is weekly grocery, $200 is 1/2 of the electric bill, $200 is her big Christmas gift.  We also had a talk about how many hours I have to work to make that amount of money and how many hours the average person has to work to make that amount of money.

It also opened up a conversation about how rich people don't stay rich by blowing money on things that are more cost effective to do in other ways.

Explaining that we're not rich, we're comfortable, we have all we need and alot of what we want and we love spoiling her, so while it may appear rich in comparison to ways she'd had to live in the past, that it's not rich by US standards.