In the interest of teaching our boys about money, we started giving them an “allowance” in exchange for helping take care of themselves and the house. We were pretty consistently doing it for a long time, but then stopped (I don’t remember why). Just recently, Elias asked about it and we decided to start up again.
Each week, Elias gets two quarters for his spend fund, two quarters for his save fund, two quarters for his give fund, and two quarters to place in whichever fund he would like. It teaches him about how to handle money, save money, give money, and also about choosing what he would like to buy.
Elias has been saying he really wants another Mickey Mouse Clubhouse DVD for a long time. I never purchased one for him, but he kept asking. Finally, I told him that if he really wanted one, he could spend some of his “spend money” and choose one. We opened up Amazon and looked at all of the choices. I really impressed upon him that if he bought the DVD, then the money would be gone. He’d have the video, but not the money until he earned it again in the weeks to come. He was still very excited about it so I had him count out his money.
He gave me one dollar, made 7 piles of four quarters each, and then three more. The DVD cost $8.64. (Don’t worry I gave him the 11 cents change!)
Then, we had to wait for it to come in the mail. Today just before Daddy got home from work, we got a knock on the door, and look what had arrived!
Elias was so proud. I wished he could have watched at least a bit of it right away, but we had to get ready for swim lessons. After swim lessons we had dinner, and then there was only about 30 minutes left before bath and bed. I gave him the choice of watching a little bit of his DVD or riding his bike (something he’s been begging to do for days, but I haven’t let him because he’s been sick). He elected to ride his bike, and claims he will watch a little bit of the DVD before school tomorrow. I’m not going to allow that….but maybe I’ll let him watch a bit before quiet time.
I love how proud he was that he bought it with his own money. I’ll be excited to see what else he spends his money on in the future.