What is the best money you've ever spent?

When I was a child money was tight. Every cent made a diffence as my mother was a single mother struggling to make ends meet. As we all know taking a child to the grocery store can be frustrating. I remember wanting something when we went just as my son does. Oddly enough my mother would always relent and buy me something, her specialty was one of those wooden paddle things with the ball attached by a rubber band and you smacked it. I suppose in mothers way this was spending money that made sense as it helped with hand eye cordination. But alas, this toy was cheap and did not last usually past the night I got it. I never thought much about it really... Then I caught onto when they broke they ended up in her special drawer. The drawer that when I got into trouble yielded the paddle with no ball attached that found its way to my backside and made itself known no longer as a toy. I finally quit asking for them.

When 25 years of age I went to a garage sale and low and behold I found the most interesting find... a hard plastic red, white and blue little paddle without the ball. It was 10 cents... Well it was the best attention getting 10 cents ever spent. It lasted about a year until it broke, but it made its mark.