A Life of Crime : Financial Biography, Part 1

I'm starting a series of posts where I'm going to write biographically about my relationship with money. I think this is important to do, especially if buy in to the whole notion that your attitude toward money either limits or fosters prosperity. Actually I think my life proves it.

Growing up I was an only child with relatively well off parents. As you can imagine I had all the things a child could have wanted, within reason of course. I was pretty spoiled and always seemed to have more new toys than my classmates. I liked pretending that I was rich.

I had no real concept of money and purchasing goods was merely a matter of asking each parent enough times. There was always something I wanted: Dinobot, Inhumanoid, GI Joes...

Eventually they gave me a proper allowance of 5$ a week. I was terrible with saving it. Whenever I went in to a store, I would not leave until I bought SOMETHING, even if I had to walk around for an hour. My allowances were gone within days of getting them.

For money I occasionally ran a concession stand at my mom's place of business (she runs a horseback riding facility). She did the books for me and according to her it was a pretty good business.... Except I ate all the candy. More often than not I would just beg and harass my parents for stuff until they relented. After the divorce this was much easier.

My mom was much less well off than my dad-- she never took any kind of settlement and I spent half of my time with her. My dad remained affluent. Going back and forth between each place was like a schizophrenic double life-- a working class farm in the country one week, a sprawling suburban house the next. I learned that it was only worth it to ask my dad. Most of my money went to comic books, role playing games and occult references.

My mom put me to work at the barn, but I never really enjoyed horses or working for that matter. I was a little better at managing my allowance but not by much. I would gather rocks out of the paddocks to pay for things that were above my budget. I'd make 2 cents a rock. Dad just gave me a fixed allowance with periodic adjustments based on household chore performance targets.

By my later teens, I learned how to shoplift. I stole an entire library full of books and even submitted how-to articles to underground shoplifting zines. At the time I thought it was justified because big corporations were evil. I was critical of capitalism because that attitude justified my uncontrolled desire for commercial goods.

I liked having large impressive collections of "stuff" and felt that the world, much like my parents, basically owed it to me. And, as always, I was very good at getting what I wanted.

I retired my five-finger discount card around my 18th birthday, at which point I felt I was too old to safely shoplift. I was an adult now, and starting a new life at college. Plus I just got approved for a $1,000 Discover card... (To be continued)