“David, I understand why you’d want that, and I will try to keep that in mind. That is unless it’s not in your long-term best interest, or your family’s long-term best interest, if it comes to that. But there’s something we really do need to have a serious talk about, and that’s your spending and you paying attention to your finances.”
Now her expression was a bit steadier.
“Do you know how much money you’ve been spending?” she asked.
Caryn’s antics made me chuckle.
“It’s not like I don’t have money,” I deflected.
“Just because you have it, doesn’t mean you have to waste it, and it also doesn’t mean it will last forever without more coming in, either. For example, what did you spend $50 on at the diner and $75 on at Monical’s? I couldn’t spend that much at either of those places if I tried,” Caryn started.
“I bought my friends food,” I said.
“Then there’s the money you spend when you’re with Brook. The various activities you two do together aren’t cheap. Do you know how much you spent on skydiving alone?” she asked.
“You do know that lecturing a teen is the fastest way to get them to ignore you, right?” I offered.
“Sorry. It’s just that I seriously need to get your attention. I think you and Brook need to learn to budget,” Caryn said.
“But we both have money.”
Maybe if I repeated it enough, she would get it. Apparently not.
“I understand Brook. She’s grown up without ever having to worry about finances. You should know better. Buying friends isn’t the guy I know.”
She was starting to irritate me.
“I’ve never bought friends,” I said with a little heat.
“How much did you spend on hookers in Atlanta?” she asked.
“How the hell did …” I started, but she held up her hand.
“It doesn’t matter how I know, what matters is I found out. What would people think if they knew?” she asked.
I sat back in my seat and thought about it for a moment.
“David, answer me this … if you didn’t have money, would you have put them up in a fancy hotel and paid for hookers?” she asked.
She was referring to the weekend we’d gone to Georgia on a recruiting trip. That was not my best moment. It was one of those things that if I’d thought it through, I wouldn’t have done it. But that didn’t mean I wanted to admit that to my business manager.
“I don’t know,” I shot back.
“Yes, you do,” she responded and then took a deep breath. “Why did you do it? Did you think they would be better friends because of it?”
I didn’t pay Caryn to figure me out. That was what my uncle was for, or so I thought. Then again, if my business manager couldn’t be honest with me, and tell me the truth even if it was uncomfortable, what good was she? My inner teen didn’t like to be called out for actions I knew deep down were wrong. I decided I should just be honest with her.
“It wasn’t a matter of buying friends. I wanted to expose them to stuff that they might otherwise never get a chance to do,” I said.
“Okay, I get it. I didn’t bring this up to be a bitch; it’s that I didn’t know any other way to get your attention. Do I have it now?” she asked.
“Maybe,” I hedged.
Caryn laughed.
“I don’t really care what you spend your money on, to be honest. If you decide to blow through all of it, that’s fine with me. I simply think you could use a little education and a little more actual knowledge to help you make better decisions. I know you’re better than you’ve been acting, and I know you’re smart enough to realize it,” Caryn said.
Her comments surprised me. I took another look at Caryn. Clearly, I’d underestimated her powers of observation. Or maybe I was just that transparent. Perhaps that was why Tami could read my mind when we were younger.
“What do you want?” I asked to end this.
“For you someday to be able to run your companies and charities without my help. I understand that you have about a million other things you’d rather be doing and that you trust your dad and me to run the businesses. But I’d suggest that you spend some time each week reviewing what we do. I would also like to see you start to budget,” she said.
“Can you show me why?” I asked.
Caryn reached into her briefcase, pulled out two manila folders, and laid them on the table between us. “I was hoping you’d ask,” she said and smiled.
She showed me the top page of the first folder.
“I looked back through your personal expenses from the start of school last fall through the end of last month. I tried to identify every expense you had, what it was for, and who it was for. Then I put them into categories, summed them up for each category, and then put a per-month total for each one. That’s six months’ worth of data.”
Then she pointed to the second stack.
“Next, I put down what seems a fair amount for each expense. Not a bare-bones amount, but a reasonable amount. For example, instead of using The Ritz-Carlton rates, I used the cost of a Holiday Inn with taxes and fees. Rather than putting down The Ritz-Carlton meal prices, I put down a reasonable
