It’s a fact most of us take for granted. When we spend a penny, nickel, dime, quarter or a dollar, we help a municipality or county thrive and grow.

When you buy a shopping cart full of items at Wal-Mart, you help pay a city of Athens police officer or firefighter. When your mortgage company pays your annual property tax, you help the Council on Aging provide a meal to a shut-in or maintenance to a deputy’s vehicle.

More importantly, all your tax dollars help local school systems educate the children who will become the taxpayers of tomorrow. That circle ensures Athens and Limestone continue to grow and evolve into a place where today’s students will want to live, work, worship and raise families.

It’s that circle we wanted to explore more in-depth by asking, “Where does your money go?” Our local governments, schools, utility companies and nonprofits are funded through a complex system of revenues, from property and sales taxes to state and federal appropriations and grants.

No service you enjoy is provided to you for free. Someone, somewhere made it possible by purchasing items in a store, writing a utility check or through a property tax payment to Limestone County Tax Commissioner Brian Patterson.

There are other conveniences you may not consider. Did you know that every time you fill up your car or truck at a Limestone County gasoline station you help patch a pothole on a county road? Potholes, on the other hand, still form whether you fill up or not.

Those dollars are needed now more than ever as Limestone County continues to grow at a rapid pace. Out-of-state residents continue to come here to enjoy Limestone’s inexpensive cost of living, including relatively low property and home prices.

Schools also continue to be a top draw. Plus, work is underway on Athens City Schools’ new high school and Limestone County Schools’ Sugar Creek Elementary School.

Redstone Arsenal continues to be a major economic force for Limestone County, but new industries are also bringing new residents — and tax dollars — to the area. Carpenter Technology Corporation, Polaris and the future GE Aviation facility now under construction have and will provide jobs to Limestone County workers. Their paychecks, in turn, are spent on homes, cars, utilities, groceries, gasoline, etc.

Again, the circle continues and helps provide us all with a better quality of life.

There were literally dozens of avenues we considered when planning out this special section, the second part of which will appear in the Feb. 25 edition. After all, think about your average stack of monthly bills. In addition to paying for your power, water, sewer, garbage, cable, cellphone and home internet service, you may also have bills from a doctor, dentist or hospital.

There may be other bills from a lawn or bug service. Each time you pay those bills, you help those entities keep the lights on and provide a paycheck to their employees, who — in turn — pay taxes and purchase items in Athens and Limestone County.

The same is true of your friendly community newspaper. Every advertisement sold or paper bought from a rack helps us pay our utility bills, property taxes and pays our employees, nearly all of which reside here in Limestone County. Just like you, we pay property taxes and shop at U.G. White and Wal-Mart.

The circle continues.

It’s in this spirit we put these stories together and maybe also to show how purchasing a home, car, groceries or gasoline helps keep Athens and Limestone County running. If nothing else, we hope it will help you consider the benefits of always shopping locally.

Our quality of life — and way of life — depends on it.