The other day, I found a pile of empty coin wrappers. I had forgotten about my deceased husband's antique penny collection from the 1920s buried deep in the back of my closet. Sure enough, my adult foster daughter stole the antique coins, put them in one of those penny counting machines located in the grocery store and spent most of the money. She had a friend over to spend the night, I bought pizza for everyone, and she graciously offered me $5 toward the pizzas. That was before I knew about the money she stole. Unfortunately, for her, the store has video cameras set up watching the coin-counting machine. The entire thing is on tape and in the possession of the police. Yesterday she moved out. 

If it was an isolated incident, I might have overlooked it, but in the past few months, she has stolen money from every money stash I had. There is nothing left, and I just can’t afford to keep her around, nor do I trust her. I told the police that I would not press charges at this time but if she steals anything else, I will. The police have contacted the money machine owner to try to get my antique coins back.

You might remember me telling you back in June about my adult foster daughter. She turned 19 in March, so she was kicked out of foster care, but wasn’t graduating from high school until June. That left me, a widow, on a fixed Social Security income to care for another adult without any type of financial support. She came to live with me when she was 11 years old, so I could hardly put her out on the street. We have been struggling to make ends meet since then. She hasn’t been able to find a job, was denied SSI, food stamps, and assistance. Until last month, when she finally qualified for $160 a month worth of food stamps. At first, she used the money to buy food for meals. Then, someone told her that was “her” money, so she used the balance to buy pop and candy.