Money, Money, Money

My husband always nags me about how uptight my family is when it comes to money. He has pointed out to me, numerous times, that there are two subjects that make an appearance almost every time we spend more than 20 minutes with any of my relatives: death and money. To me, this is the norm, it's what I grew up hearing and conversing about, and it wasn't until I met my husband and he brought to my attention that perhaps these weren't things people discussed- at least not as often or into as much detail as my family seems to cover. My husband didn't grow up with money; my family, while not outright 'wealthy' was well off. He started working at an auto shop at 13 to pay for his lunch and extra curricular activities, where as I was dressing up in formal gowns for family reunions every Christmas in Hawaii. You get the idea.

My husband and I met in high school and began dating when we were 16. Despite the fact that we were complete opposites, we balanced each other perfectly. He learned quite early in our relationship that I had trust funds and investment accounts waiting for me to turn the appropriate ages required to claim them. He was intimidated from the get go, but when he was introduced to 'pig money' by my mom he learned quite a bit about finances. Pig money has helped us find our happy medium as a married couple with shared moneys.

Pig money is just a simple piggy bank that all our change gets collected into. It gets emptied periodically and put into the bank. With interest, it grows (and it grows quickly- it's surprising how much spare change one collects). When there is a substantial amount we move it to an investment account. That's it... I have been able to buy two brand new cars, one used and still have a hefty amount of money left over from this money. My husband has also implemented multiple add-ons and rules to this practice. ie. The 'double' rule: any time someone wants to spend money on something frivolous, they need to save up twice the amount they want to spend. 

Naturally when we decided to try for a child and were blessed with our son we discussed setting up accounts and starting a 'pig money' piggy bank for him. My son, Nathan, is yet to celebrate his first birthday and has a savings account, a life insurance policy, and a trust fund. My husband and I may not be the most well off people, and have not started these accounts with an obscene amount of money, but we know- thanks to pig money- that this money will grow and will give him a great start as an adult. Heck, one of the biggest issues right now being discussed by economists and scholars is that the rising cost of college makes it almost not worth attending due to the mass amounts of debt students are stuck collecting through student loans. If starting an account right now for my son can give him a college education and take off the burden of student loans to have to pay off, then I feel like I'm doing a wonderful thing as a mother.

Now I told you all of this to tell you a story, followed by a rant...

5 years into our relationship my husband and I wanted a change. We up and moved to Arizona, to my home town. Apparently this was not enough of a change for my husband as he came home one day and announced he wanted to join the Army. We discussed and debated, and finally decided that he was going to join up. We were married soon after this decision, and just 9 days before he left for boot camp.

My husband has been in 3 1/2 years now, moved up in rank 6 times within that period, and has made some wonderful friends. He received orders to Texas where we bought ourselves a home and settled in. Our home is nothing fancy, by any means and is rather cramped, but we have an office we hardly use so my husband sometimes offers it to friends coming home from deployment for short transitional stays. I have never had much of a problem with this until now.

My husband and one other non-commissioned officer have been the 'top' soldiers in their company since the company uncased their colors at this post. My husband and this guy were the soldiers chosen to represent the company in all the competitions- soldier of the month, soldier of the year, NCO of the year, the Audie Murphy club, etc. My husband has had trouble finding people with his same sense of pride, honor and work ethic while in the military, and this other soldier is the only one who seemed to demonstrate the same. Needless to say they became close.

This soldier was sent on deployment and after 12 days overseas was notified that they were cancelling the units deployment and he was being sent home. Prior to this deployment he sent his wife to her home state, got rid of his apartment, put all his things in storage, etc. Being the supportive guy my husband is he offered to let the guy stay at our house until he found an apartment to move into.

Low and behold this guys wife decides to come back and surprise him... So she ended up staying with us as well. The two of them fought the whole time, made a HUGE mess of the bedroom we let them use, she had me driving her to the hospital for chemo (turns out she has been lying about having cancer for years), and made the whole time they were here unbelievably uncomfortable. Her husband did not want her here, but refused to give her money to go home.

After about 5 days in my home, and my husband telling her husband that she needed to go, she came to me with a story about her friend owing her money and that she was going to collect on it so she could buy her bus ticket.

Shortly after she left, her husband moved out and into his own apartment. That morning I went upstairs to survey the damage, and to take a few things to my sons room, which is located across the hall from the room we lent to the couple. I noticed the blankets on the rocking chair in my sons room were tossed about and a glass of water was left on the side table. This woman had been sleeping in my sons bedroom! And not only that: there was $125 missing from his piggy bank! 

Shock, disgust, anger... So many emotions immediately coursed through my veins. How could someone steal from an infant? Not just any infant- MY child, My baby.

As uncomfortable as the conversation was my husband confronted the soldier and asked if he or his wife had taken the money- of course they said no. My husband has since cut off contact with them and since there is really nothing we can do, we have moved on from it. I replaced Nathan's money with my own since it was the only thing I could do- Only this time I transferred it from my account to his, so no cash touched his piggy bank.

I have trouble wrapping my head around the fact that someone could do something so deceitful.

By taking $125 out of his piggy bank, who knows the growth that money could have seen in his accounts. Did this woman just steal Nathan's first car? Did she steal the payment for his first semester of college?

Everything adds up- I can only hope that her negative karma is adding up as well.