Money Money Money

These days Austen is very into money.  At school they are learning the value of money and how much a penny, nickel, dime, quarters, etc. are worth. He picks up dirty coins off the street and in the park during school which makes me cringe.  In fact, one time in a parking lot, he almost picked up a quarter in a nice big grease pool until I told him that I would gladly give him a quarter if he didn't pick up the dirty one!

It's funny that on one hand he values all money but the other day, Tom found a ripped $20 bill in his garbage can!   He said it was ripped so he threw it away. We have to watch this kid like a hawk with his money because every day after school he likes to come home and empty out his wallet and piggy bank and play with the money.

This weekend, I did laundry and found a $10 bill and a $1 bill in his pockets (also a rock). Guess I'm going to have to start checking his pockets before I throw them in the laundry!

After all this, Tom and I decided to clean out his piggy bank and put it in the real bank so he wouldn't have access to so much money. Probably a good thing to do every so often anyway.  But, I guess we should have done it while he was asleep. He probably wouldn't have noticed it was any lighter.
Poor kid doesn't understand the difference between a piggy bank and a real bank. Or maybe he does and he knows that once it goes in the real bank, he'll never get it back for toys or anything else he wants  to buy!