Mondays are awesome right? Well the Monday I’m about to tell you about would set into motion a chain of events that I was not only not ready for but would turn into a lesson that I would never forget.
It started off like any Monday…checking emails, sorting through the papers on my desk and checking my bank account to see how responsible I wasn’t over the weekend. This is when the day took it’s first turn. My account was noticeably short in funds and with all my bills coming due that week, I needed to know why. As I glanced at the charges I noticed a lot of Apple charges to my account. Of course, the bank statement doesn’t show what Apple was charging for so I started to dig. None of these charges were associated with my Apple account so I called the bank and told them that these charges were fraudulent. Following protocol, they shut down my card, issued a new one and began to dive into the charges. It was during this time that I sent a text to all 3 of my kids to make sure there were not charges coming from any of them. I was promptly met with 3 solid “no”s. Within a few minutes, the bank had reached back out to me letting me know that the information associated with these charges didn’t match fraudulent activity. This meant…the user knew all the information associated with the card. I told them this couldn’t be but they urged me to double check with anyone that could have possibly used my card. Enter turn number two!
I called both my daughters, ages 20 and 17, and asked them to be 100% honest and let me know if they had used my card. Both promised me that they had nothing to do with any charges to my account. I then called my son and was met with the very same promise. How could this be? There was only one way to find out…I asked my son for his Apple log in and he sent it right over. I logged into his account and in no time at all I knew where my money had gone. Over the course of 3 days he had charged over $1,200.00 to my account for “in-app” purchases from Twitch, YouTube and TikTok. My heart sank and I was at a loss for words. I was angry like I hadn’t been angry with him before in his lifetime. I called him and told him that I knew what he had done and I was on my way to his house to collect his phone and his gaming systems. He started to attempt to deny it but it was clear that he knew he was busted. When I arrived, he didn’t want to come outside and face me but after a couple of minutes he slowly walked to the street to meet me. I stayed calm and asked him what it was he was buying, why and at what point was he going to tell me he spent so much money. With tears in his eyes he told me that he didn’t keep track of the purchases and had no idea how much it was. He then told me he was spending the money supporting gamers and creators with these “in-app” purchases. He of course said he was sorry and I hugged him and said nothing else. I got in my truck and drove away.
My mind raced as to how I was going to teach my 13 year old the value of a dollar. Every dollar he gets is associated to games or apps or some kind of tech. How was I going to teach him differently and just as important…how was he ever going to pay me back $1,200 dollars? Grounding him from his electronics wasn’t going to teach him anything. It was in that moment that I decided that he needed to come stay with me and that he would go to work with me every day. I needed him to understand that money isn’t easy to come by and that there should be some value tied to it other than a quantity of games or in-app purchases. The plan became that he would make $7.25 an hour, he’d buy all his own lunches, he’d pocket 25% of his weekly earnings but he couldn’t have that until I was paid back in full. He was also grounded from electronics until further notice including his phone.
The morning of his third day of work, he grabbed two waters from the fridge and said, “I’m taking two waters because they are really expensive at the gas station”. At the end of week one he went home for a week off. He sent me a text during that week asking how long it would take to pay his debt. Based on the rough math, we determined around 8 weeks. At the rate of being with me every other week, it would take him a total of 4 months to pay his debt in full. I could tell that the reality of this amount of time hit him hard. What he did next shocked me…he asked if he could come live with me so he could work every week until he had paid me back, to which I promptly replied...”absolutely”! I’ll take all the time I can with my kids and never complain!
We are now in week 3 and he’s worked for both D1 Design Group and Anderson Glass. He’s had days where he pushes a broom all day and other days out on job sites installing. It looks like he’s learning the value of hard work which was the original goal! Here’s where our story takes it’s final turn…I didn’t have extra money in my account to lose like that. I know you’re thinking, well didn’t you get a refund on all that stuff? The answer to your question, Apple refunded $28.00, but I don’t really care about all that anymore. I’ll admit that I had no idea what I was going to do but in these three weeks, I’ve learned some lessons too. I’m watching him learn so much, from the initial lesson of the value of a hard-earned dollar to the ins and outs of the businesses I’m in. My dad’s dad told me once, “son, the only dollar you’ll ever have is the one you work your tail off for.” Turns out he was right. Ultimately though, the biggest thing for me is that I am getting time with my son that I wouldn’t otherwise have had and that is worth way more than $1,200.00. Plus my kids was supporting artists, so how mad could I really be? –dsa