Cut Costs This Year, Starting with the Tooth Fairy

If you’re stinging from the pain of ‘this economy’ or suffering nasty paper cuts from your post-holiday credit card statements, consider cutting back on child-related costs this year. Examine your budget carefully and wisely wield your scalpel. If you vow this year to say no to peer pressure of the imaginary kind, you may find the Tooth Fairy budget is ripe for cutting.
 
When my daughter lost her first tooth, she was handsomely rewarded by the Tooth Fairy with a crisp dollar bill (which I swiped from my son’s piggy bank, but that’s another story). The next morning she pranced down the stairs, proud of her newfound riches. A whole dollar! She couldn’t have been happier.
 
A couple days later, her mouth got in the way of two toddlers engaged in a friendly backyard brawl. She ran bleeding and triumphant across the lawn, showing off the fresh gape at the bottom of her Kindergarten smile. 
 
That evening as I put her to bed, she placed the tooth carefully under her pillow.  

“Mom?” Her little face shone, full of hope.
 
“Yes, Sweetie?”  I said, pulling up the sheet and folding it under her chin.
 
Her eyes grew large. “Some people get more than a dollar.”


Knowing where this was going, I tried not to react. “Really?  What do they get?”
 
She hesitated before answering. “Well… some people get toys.” She turned shy—or was it calculating—before adding, “Ella got twenty dollars.”
 
Twenty bucks? For a tooth? No wonder the economy’s in such a mess.
 
I told my daughter that I didn’t know Ella’s arrangement or anything about the official Tooth Fairy payment schedule, but that her brother had always received one dollar from the irrepressible imp, and that she ought to expect the same.
 
Not to deprive the Tooth Fairy of her mission in life, but consider for a moment where this kind of inflation leads. If you let the Tooth Fairy drop twenty dollars a pop, then what about the Easter Bunny? He won’t be upstaged by some flighty chick who doesn’t even merit her own holiday. Before you know it the gold bunny will be made of actual gold. Poor Santa is already on the hook for plenty. Let this kind of spending go unchecked and mark my words next year you’ll be pulling out a home equity loan for school clothes. If you can credit, that is.
 
Bottom line: It’s a tooth, not an accomplishment. Stick to one dollar and if your kid complains, blame it on the Fairy.