Do you have McDonald's Money?

Now tell me WHY in the world are you at the window at McDonald's shuffling through debit cards trying to buy a breakfast combo?!! You knew you didn't have "McDonald's money" when you pulled in!! Come on now, this is one of the very first lessons in financial literacy we learned as children... or at least in my household!

Look, I'm 44, and if there's one thing I’ve learned about grown folks, it’s that a whole lot of y'all did not listen to your mama. I see it every day. But nothing gets my blood boiling—and my eyebrow twitching—like watching a grown woman pull out her credit card to pay for something she can do without.

I'm looking dead in this heffa's rearview mirror daring her to make eye contact so I can ask: "Who raised you?!"

See, in Mrs. Mary's house —and now in the house I run—there are two MORE commandments etched into the kitchen wall just under those sacred Ten Commandments. Number eleven? We got food at home. Number twelve? Thou better have thy own McDonald's Money.

That phrase isn't just about ingredients in the fridge; it's a financial philosophy. It means we don't buy two-dollar sodas; we drink tap water. It means we don't do impromptu drive-thrus, we eat the leftovers. It means that money is a resource, not confetti to be thrown at every passing craving or lack of planning.

I can remember being young... maybe four or five, leaving my granddaddy's house down on Beekman and we turned left onto Hopple. No sooner than McDonald's came in sight as we approached old Colerain I asked " Mama, can we get a Happy Meal?"

She retorted almost automatically "Didn't you just eat? We have a perfectly good refrigerator full of food at the house."

Offended, I tee-ed off... in my HEAD... VERY unvocalized: "WTF, does that mean?!!" (Remind me to tell y'all about the time I said the quiet part out loud and accidentally call my mom the B-word.) Out loud, I want to believe more for the entertainment of my brother and sister, instead of foolishness but I retorted "I don't want that."

My mama pulled up to the light, right before McDonald's, looked in the rearview mirror, and gave me the LOOK. And y'all know the LOOK. It's the one that says, "You're pushing your luck."

But I was on a roll, I REALLY wanted a kids' meal, and now my sibs were looking at me with sheer admiration, (now that I think about it, maybe it was a silent warning; a plea to save myself.) I kept going: "Awwwa... but mom..."

The light had just turned green. but my mother put the car in park, turned around, looked me square in my eyes and asked, "Do you have McDonald's money?"

"Huh?" I asked.

"Exactly", she retorted, "we got food, good food... at home!" And proceeded to drive TF past McDonald's.

Oh, I'm mad now... (That's foreboding my bad decision... )

"I pay the mortgage, the car that you sitting in, the gas it takes to drive it, the insurance too. I work a FULL TIME job for the money to do it... clothes on your back, shoes on your feet... I don't need to add McDonald's to the list of stuff I have to pay for TODAY," she ranted.

Foolishly, I offered up "My daddy pays for that."

Honestly, I don't remember what happened immediately thereafter. All I know is that my brother and sister were huddled against the door on the other side of the car and my mother was still carrying on talking about "That's MY money too!! Don't you worry about where it comes from! What's in your wallet?! You want McDonald's... you pay for it".

With quiet defiance looked in my change purse and counted out $.83. I guess it wasn't quite enough because she peeked over and said: "What you going to buy with that?!"

"But YOU have money..."

For some odd reason, there was a hollow noise in head, like when you hold a seashell to your ear. (A little brain damage I suppose) "You damn right I do!! My wallet KEEPS money, not make it!'

I finally sat back and shut up, resigned to eat some bullshit at home lol.

We didn't get McDonald's that day, because I didn't have McDonald's money, and she was teaching me not to rely on her money for every single whim I had. She continued in the way only mother's do, when they have to drive a point home. "When you get a job, or start your own little hustle, or find a ten-dollar bill on the sidewalk—then you have McDonald's money. Until then, don't you worry about what I got, 0we've got food at home."

And there was the lesson!! "Financial literacy lesson number one! You can't spend money you ain't got!  And that every time you want something, you are dipping into that money you do have. That McDonald's money could be going towards a new pair of shoes, a little something-something on the Duke bill, or maybe even just a little bit for a rainy day,

It taught me discipline and delayed gratification. It taught me how to make a grocery budget stretch like taffy. It taught me that my lack of planning does not constitute an emergency for my bank account.

Pissed me clean TF off. But you know what? I was checking off chores in the chores book for cash. Ran up a tab for my mama to pay me. I learned.

Now, as a 44-year-old traumatized single mother myself, sitting in the drive thru behind this woman, all I can think is "Who raised you?"

I give them The Look, lean in close, and ask, with the same sweet voice and stone-cold conviction my Mama taught me: "Do you have McDonald's money?" The cycle continues. And that, my dears, is how you raise financially responsible (and slightly traumatized) adults.