“Money is paper” by Jessica Benedict, Pennsylvania

topic: MONEY medium: text

“Money is paper. It’s the means to be comfortable and not having to worry about eating or paying the bills. Having it means I can keep my family from knowing the hardships that some people have to face. You need it for survival, but beyond that, I’d rather have my husband home than have the money to buy whatever I wanted. I don’t need my life to be flashy, I need it to be comfortable.

When I was young, my mom worked menial jobs to keep my brother and I fed and clothed. She worked so hard to keep us afloat, and I never really understood how much she put up. I appreciated her, of course, but I never realized that people would do so much for a little piece of paper. For Valentine’s Day, my dad, my brother, and I stopped in to see her while she was working at a convenience store. She was disheveled, obviously stressed, and certainly in no mood to talk. But she saw this big heart balloon and a box of chocolates and bright smiles on our little faces. She blushed, and smiled the biggest smile I’d ever seen and ran over to hug us. She told me that no matter how bad of a day she’d had, as long as she knew we were doing well, the effort and the awful pay didn’t matter. “I have you.” It’s what I was taught.

Money management is definitely more important because of the way I was raised. I saw people I cared about struggling daily because of the way they mismanaged not only money, but everything! Their disorganization was their downfall, and I don’t want to live through that struggle again. I wouldn’t necessarily need more money, it’s the management of it that counts.”