It’s soccer season and my daughter’s one of only two girls on her team without an official warm-up suit. I don’t want to pay $69.99 for something that probably won’t fit her right and could probably be bought in knock-off version for $14.99.

Anyway, warm-up suits are optional. She says she doesn’t want one. I’m choosing to believe her.

But in an effort to boost her team’s chances of playing 15 minutes at Giants Stadium in a Red Bull promotional event, I just wrote a check for $100. Teams must sell a certain number of tickets for the premium field time, and parents who bought the warm-up suits aren’t snapping them up at the rate I am.

Some families buy stuff. I put my money on experiences.

I drive cars until the doors won’t open, wear shoes until they can no longer be resoled and use a cutting board I got with a gift of cheeses sometime around 1982.

But that doesn’t mean I’m a tightwad. I got to Europe for two short trips last year and am on a first name basis with many restaurant owners in town.

This anti-materialistic tendency is very much at odds with the society in which I’m raising my fifth grader.

I’m confident my daughter feels she’s an integral part of her soccer team without the warm-up suit. But a flat-panel computer monitor is no replacement for the flat-panel TV the budding interior designer in her craves. The one she watches during sleepovers at many other houses.

Just last night she looked at the aging chair in our living room and suggested it was time we put it on the curb. She volunteered to help me cut it up so we could get it out the door. Then she offered to take the money from her savings account to buy new furniture. “That’s my money, right?” she asked, knowing exactly which bank it lives in and just about how much is in her account. I explained that it is her money, but that it’s not her job to buy living room furniture for our home. Still, I’ve got my eye on this chair in the new furniture store recently opened by her soccer coach – a store she recently dragged me into.

Wouldn’t buying it be a wonderful gesture of appreciation for the innumerable hours he selflessly volunteers coaching the team? And if it means that much to her, why not? I’ll even let her kick in 100 bucks for the chair. That might be just the incentive needed to keep dirty feet and food off of it.

Would you let your kid contribute to a non-essential household item? Weigh in on The Exchange.