It's not "stealing" its "borrowing"

We've sunk lower than low. We have a bunch of medical bills we've been ignoring that are starting to charge interest that we need to get paid. There are huge changes coming up soon in our lives, so I'm not worried about being able to pay the money back in the long run, but for now, we've decided that the best course of action to avoid increasing interest and borrowing more from credit cards that we then will not be able to pay down as fast because we're messing with our balance transfer interest rates is to use Ben's birthday/Hannukah money to pay down our bills. :-(

We both truly believe with all our hearts that it is his money, and we will be returning it ASAP and keeping it safe for him until he's old enough to choose what he wants to do with it. His grandpa has created a college account for him (I honestly have no idea how much is in there) but since none of the givers of this money specified that it be earmarked for college, we aren't going to add that requirement ourselves. It's Ben's money, to do with as he sees fit, as soon as he's old enough to understand there are other aspects to money besides "quarters for balls." We imagined how long he'd stay and play Skee-Ball at the arcade if he had 1,200 quarters and the answer is probably the rest of his life. :-)