介绍:
You are listening to the parents talk podcast, a program that brings you conversation, inspiration and thoughts on parenting. We are James and Chanelle. We are the parents of four kids with a baby on the way. Welcome to read with you.
Our topic for today is allowance and teaching kids about money, and James is going to start us off.
Now it’s really important for Chanelle and I to teach our kids that they’re not entitled to allowance. They get allowance because we want them to have freedom and choices with their money and we’ll talk about that a little later. But it motivates them to do their job and it helps them feel like their work is appreciated. So those are some of the reasons that we do allowance, and it’s been a learning experience for us and we’ve made a few adjustments but I’ll let Chanelle tell you a little bit about how we do it.
So what we do now for allowance- our kids get a small allowance and it is a pretty small amount. They get paid once a month, at the end of the month and they have, like we talked about last time, quite a few responsibilities: Daily responsibilities and then bigger responsibilities on the weekend. So, for all the things that they do, they get $6 a month US which is the equivalent of about 6 packs of gum that they can buy with that. It’s really not very much money at all, but we feel that that’s important to actually give them a small amount of money because they don’t have any expenses either. We don’t require them to buy anything with this money. This is just fun money for them, it’s discretionary income, they can choose what they want to do with it. Now there is one exception and that’s when they first get their money, the first 10% goes to giving. We give 10% to our church and the kids do that, they practice that, so for every dollar, they give 10 cents. Then the next 10% is for savings and that’s for future, for college or for other things that they’ll be doing in their future and that goes in their savings account. So of this $6 that they get, 80% is just to spend on whatever they want to spend it on.
So what we’re trying to do is to teach them, you know, how to spend this money. And it is their choice. One of the first things that we did was help them to open an account at a bank and that was a really fun experience and I highly recommend it: to go and open up an account for your child and have them have that experience. Because I’ll tell you what, here in the US, they get bank statements, you know, in the mail and they can see how much they’re saving and it’s really exciting to them. In fact, our bank that we go to, it’s a credit union. They’re able to --what, they pick a prize, Chanelle?
Yeah, every time they make a deposit into the bank, then they get a little prize from the treasure box, so the bank tries to make it fun too.
Yeah, and it is fun for them. so they enjoy showing me when they’ve gone to the bank with Chanelle, what they got, their prize, so that’s one thing that we feel is really important, we want to teach them to save. And the other thing with Chanelle, um, talking about the tithing to the church, that helps them to be selfless. You know, we’re trying to teach our kids that we can give to people and we teach them where that money goes, you know that helps people. Our church spends a lot of money on humanitarian aid and helping people and we make sure that we tell the kids where their money goes and how it’s spent. So those are two things that, like Chanelle said, go automatically, and the rest is to have fun.
So I wanted to talk about teaching them to have fun and also spend their money wisely. So the kids learned early on that they don’t like to have, I guess, what should I say? Cheap things?
Cheap things, things that break
Things that break, right. So, you know they want to get toys and so we’ve taken them to stores, and they’ll get these toys and spend all of their money, their loot, on a cheap toy and it breaks right away and of course they don’t like that, and so we’ve talked to them about that. Was that a good purchase? Well, no it wasn’t. They realize that they could spend their money better.
And I think that it’s made them more aware of quality and then they’re okay with buying things that are used because they know they can get a better deal on it, and they’re okay with it because they know that it’s better quality it’s going to last them a little longer, and so they have become a little more wise in their spending. Sometimes, I mean, they’re still kids, and sometimes they are still impulsive and they’ll spend their allowance all in one day on a big ice cream cone or something, but for the most part, they think a little bit more about how they’re going to spend their money.
You bet, I totally agree.
Thanks so much for joining us today on parents talk and we’ll see you next time.
You are listening to the parents talk podcast, a program that brings you conversation, inspiration and thoughts on parenting. We are James and Chanelle. We are the parents of four kids with a baby on the way. Welcome to read with you.
Our topic for today is allowance and teaching kids about money, and James is going to start us off.
The other thing that we want to help our kids understand is being good to one another in the family. So when we have a birthday coming up or Christmas is coming up, I don’t have a problem finding a job for them to do, pay them a little bit extra money they can organize the garage or do something that needs to be done, and I’ll tell them, “Hey for an extra job, I’ll pay you guys a dollar to organize the shoes in the garage.” Of course, I like to do that when I know there’s a birthday around the corner so they can be generous with their siblings. And to see your children buy gifts for their siblings or other family members, or even a friend, that’s a pretty rewarding experience, because it helps them to be generous. And that is something that we want to teach our kids to have for the rest of their lives: to be generous with the money that they have.
yeah, and I think that allowing them to have their own money that they have their own choices about is a big deal because they’re able to decide how to spend it, they’re able to make those choices-- sometimes they’re not the best choices and they’re able to learn from that like James said, by buying something that doesn’t last, they learn, “I want something that lasts.” Or by spending money on other people they realize that that feels really good to do something for other people, so this money becomes a learning experience.
You bet. I was just going to add one more thing to that, and that is, it helps them to be better gift receivers.
Definitely.
And so when someone gives them a gift they’re more appreciative because they know, like wow, this has some monetary value. They spent money on me. And it helps them appreciate that. So the younger they are and they start to learn what things cost, that helps them to be appreciative of “wow, I know that that probably cost more than $5” or something to where they can really appreciate that.
yeah, and knowing that, then they don’t take it for granted, so that’s a great lesson that they can learn by having their own money. We wanted to finish with a quote by Barbara Coloroso and this kind of sums up what we think about giving our kids an allowance. She says,
“What is important for kids to learn is that no matter how much money they have, earn, win, or inherit, they need to know how to spend it, how to save it, and how to give it to others in need. This is what handling money is about, and this is why we give kids an allowance.” Thanks so much for joining us today on parents talk and we’ll see you next time.
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