What I did with $100
We recently sold our house and our realtor Suzi just mailed us a $100 gift card for 4 rivers (a BBQ place in Florida) and gave me a $100 bill. My Mom and Dad were limited to BBQ but I had no limits, I could get anything!
This is the thinking process I went through to find the perfect thing to get me...
It also came with a card, which she wrote: “KT, thank you for all of your help! Go buy yourself something fun. Love Suzi.” Now the first thing I thought that I could buy with this is a pair of used Doc Martens. I have had my eye on them for a bit and it was like a calling for me. Then I decided that I could do something else with the money since I was already almost guaranteed a pair for writing 100 blog posts, reading 3 million words and finishing 350 lessons in maths. So I thought and thought. I decided to google “fun things to buy” cause I couldn't think of anything! I clicked on Amazon's link and found tons of things that were fun! The first thing that caught my eye was a tortilla blanket. I could be a burrito!
My lifelong dream (not). Then I looked through my wish lists on Amazon and I didn’t have any interest in them anymore. So I went back to thinking again...
What if I invested it in Etherium to make more money! Etherium was at $187 so I could buy part of a share! It would be fun to watch the stock go down and hopefully up and I wouldn't feel bad because it was “fun” money. Then I thought that to the average 13 year old investing in something was not fun, so I thought once again. What if I purchased $100 worth of clothes at Shein.com? That would be fun, right? I couldn’t bring myself to look at any of their clothing to actually buy, but just for fun and dreaming. Not only is it not environmentally friendly but it would make me have some serious buyers remorse. Then I came up with spending it at a thrift store! That solved 1 out of the 2 problems. Now I had to think of how I could change the buyer’s remorse part. Why do I get buyer’s remorse? Because when I buy clothes (even if they are environmentally friendly) I already have a lot that have tons of life in them and are in great condition. This would be a fun way to spend money but would it be logical in the end? I would want to bring all my new clothes on an upcoming trip and it would be stressful because I would have to choose over the old vs. the new. Well... new to me. Then my Dad said that I was a psychotic minimalist. I was trying to find things that I didn’t need but were fun. It was all self centered because she wrote “ Go buy YOURSELF something fun”. I was only thinking of me! I could pick up the check when we go grocery shopping because that is always almost $100. That would only help 3 people. Then I remembered that a couple of months ago I was obsessed with world hunger and cried every single night for about a week, because it clicked in my mind that so many kids were starving and I wasn’t. And I wanted to sponsor a kid for $38 a month that needed it. They needed me! I could help them, yay! I went on the website and I would only be able to sponsor a child for 2 months. Well 2.31, but I couldn’t do it for a whole year! What about Kiva!? Kiva is a website that my mom and used to use a lot. Kiva is a place where you can lend money to people in different countries to help them buy more things for their business so that they can sell it. You get it back between 1-14 months and you're helping someone have a better life! The minimum you can donate is $25 so I can help 4 people out! You can also specify what kind of loans you would want to give, like… Women, Men, Agriculture, livestock, education, refugees and IDPs. IDP stands for Internally Displaced Persons. They are not refugees because they are stuck in their own country. Not only will this make me feel good but it will make Suzi feel good. She gave me the money because she knew I would love it (who doesn’t love money?) and she was helping me have fun. Now I can tell her I helped four people! 5 people are helped and everyone is happy! I am hoping that by reading this article that it will inspire you to lend someone $25 and help them have a better life. And after 4 people are done using $25 dollars I can give another 4 people a loan. This hundred dollars could help hundreds of people over the years if I don’t decide to spend it on something that can’t continuously be helping others.
I have learned that if I had gone with one of my first ideas, I wouldn’t have been happy. I would have just been getting more stuff I didn’t need and didn’t spark joy.
Thank you Suzi for giving my the $100 to buy myself something fun. Being given the chance to do anything with $100 made me feel powerful. But it was also hard. The money made me feel more prepared for the real world and made me think differently.
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
― Albert Einstein
This is the thinking process I went through to find the perfect thing to get me...
It also came with a card, which she wrote: “KT, thank you for all of your help! Go buy yourself something fun. Love Suzi.” Now the first thing I thought that I could buy with this is a pair of used Doc Martens. I have had my eye on them for a bit and it was like a calling for me. Then I decided that I could do something else with the money since I was already almost guaranteed a pair for writing 100 blog posts, reading 3 million words and finishing 350 lessons in maths. So I thought and thought. I decided to google “fun things to buy” cause I couldn't think of anything! I clicked on Amazon's link and found tons of things that were fun! The first thing that caught my eye was a tortilla blanket. I could be a burrito!
My lifelong dream (not). Then I looked through my wish lists on Amazon and I didn’t have any interest in them anymore. So I went back to thinking again...
What if I invested it in Etherium to make more money! Etherium was at $187 so I could buy part of a share! It would be fun to watch the stock go down and hopefully up and I wouldn't feel bad because it was “fun” money. Then I thought that to the average 13 year old investing in something was not fun, so I thought once again. What if I purchased $100 worth of clothes at Shein.com? That would be fun, right? I couldn’t bring myself to look at any of their clothing to actually buy, but just for fun and dreaming. Not only is it not environmentally friendly but it would make me have some serious buyers remorse. Then I came up with spending it at a thrift store! That solved 1 out of the 2 problems. Now I had to think of how I could change the buyer’s remorse part. Why do I get buyer’s remorse? Because when I buy clothes (even if they are environmentally friendly) I already have a lot that have tons of life in them and are in great condition. This would be a fun way to spend money but would it be logical in the end? I would want to bring all my new clothes on an upcoming trip and it would be stressful because I would have to choose over the old vs. the new. Well... new to me. Then my Dad said that I was a psychotic minimalist. I was trying to find things that I didn’t need but were fun. It was all self centered because she wrote “ Go buy YOURSELF something fun”. I was only thinking of me! I could pick up the check when we go grocery shopping because that is always almost $100. That would only help 3 people. Then I remembered that a couple of months ago I was obsessed with world hunger and cried every single night for about a week, because it clicked in my mind that so many kids were starving and I wasn’t. And I wanted to sponsor a kid for $38 a month that needed it. They needed me! I could help them, yay! I went on the website and I would only be able to sponsor a child for 2 months. Well 2.31, but I couldn’t do it for a whole year! What about Kiva!? Kiva is a website that my mom and used to use a lot. Kiva is a place where you can lend money to people in different countries to help them buy more things for their business so that they can sell it. You get it back between 1-14 months and you're helping someone have a better life! The minimum you can donate is $25 so I can help 4 people out! You can also specify what kind of loans you would want to give, like… Women, Men, Agriculture, livestock, education, refugees and IDPs. IDP stands for Internally Displaced Persons. They are not refugees because they are stuck in their own country. Not only will this make me feel good but it will make Suzi feel good. She gave me the money because she knew I would love it (who doesn’t love money?) and she was helping me have fun. Now I can tell her I helped four people! 5 people are helped and everyone is happy! I am hoping that by reading this article that it will inspire you to lend someone $25 and help them have a better life. And after 4 people are done using $25 dollars I can give another 4 people a loan. This hundred dollars could help hundreds of people over the years if I don’t decide to spend it on something that can’t continuously be helping others.
I have learned that if I had gone with one of my first ideas, I wouldn’t have been happy. I would have just been getting more stuff I didn’t need and didn’t spark joy.
Thank you Suzi for giving my the $100 to buy myself something fun. Being given the chance to do anything with $100 made me feel powerful. But it was also hard. The money made me feel more prepared for the real world and made me think differently.
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
― Albert Einstein
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