Thinking back to your childhood who taught you about money? Your parents, teacher, nobody?
My parents never taught me how to handle money. Sure, I learned how to count money in elementary school and balance a check book in high school but that was it. Nobody ever taught me how to budget or what a budget even was. See, these magical cards you could swipe and the store would let you leave with the items you wanted! SCORE! Only one problem, eventually they wanted their money back. Cue the financial mess!
When my husband and I had children we knew it was our responsibility to be money smart! We didn't want them making the same mistakes that we had made for so long. There are literally a hundred different ways to teach your children about money but we went with Financial Peace Junior a kit created by the AMAZING Dave Ramsey.
If you have never heard of Dave Ramsey before go to his site right now, I give you permission to leave and come back!
https://www.daveramsey.com/
Financial Peace Junior is a kit that includes everything you will ever need to lay a money-smart foundation for your kids.
Start with the Parent Guide-seriously! This tells you exactly what you need to know to be able to lay that strong foundation. My husband and I looked through everything in the kit and decided what chores were appropriate for our family. Y'all there are so many chores to pick from and they are little magnetic strips that you can change out at any time you want! Be aware the activity book can be a little wordy for younger children but I just usually summarize while my reds are coloring the pages. Before we started this journey we explained to our kids what it meant to be responsible for money and how the only way to get money is by working hard for it. **Take some time and teach this to your children!!**
Work=money No work=No money
We've introduced the concept of working hard and you'll get paid now we take it a step further. We talk about what it means to give, save, and spend. Yes, the activity book goes into this we just gave a general overview before we began. We talked about how they wanted to give their money to, what they'd like to save for, and what they'd like to spend their money on. This talk took around twenty minutes but really was an eye opener for us. The kids each made a list and then we talked over the chores that we had 1.picked out for them to do.
***Wait a minute!***
Are you telling me you pay your kids to do chores?!
Not all chores! For example, cleaning their room is a 'part of the family' chore meaning they don't receive any pay they are just expected to do it as part of this family! You have to sit down with your spouse and decide what chores will be paid and which will not be. We do pay our reds immediately because it helps them connect the work=money philosophy. After all of that we were ready to begin! The kids hung up their chore charts and got to work. Now, I am not a clean house freak. I understand they are kids and need to be children! They do not do chores everyday and I don't ever force them to do a chore. We simply talk about what they are saving for and how they can earn money to buy what they want. See, my husband and I don't buy toys for our kids anymore. I know, bad parents! Think about it for a second though. You spend how much money on toys that they play with maybe ten times and then get donated?! Let them buy their own toys! We have found that they are very particular with what they buy and take such better care of it than they ever did when we bought it! It's tough but think of the valuable skill your teaching them! After the foundation has been laid (you've went through the activity guide- we did one per week at the budget meeting) and your getting into a routine here is what our typical month looks like: Sunday's are the reds budget meetings! This meeting lasts maybe five minutes.
1. We pull them into our room or the couch. They come prepared to this budget meeting, meaning they have their envelopes and chore chart.
2. We evaluate how they did for the week. Maybe we had an extremely busy week and they didn't do a chore every day, no problem! Give grace, seriously!
3. They pay tithes, we do 10% of whatever they earned for the week. Big red is saving her tithe money to buy Christmas presents for kids who are in need. Little red donates his to our rice bowl (feeding rice to those in need). The kids have decided what they want their give money to go to.
4. We update their total and go over where they want to distribute their money to for the week. Maybe they need $2 and they will reach their saving goal! Maybe they want to splurge and spend $5 of their money. It's their money they earned it they should be able to spend/save as they decide.
**Sweet side story**
Little red decided he wanted to spend all of his money. I took him to Walmart and we went up and down the toy isle at least 100 times. He finally picked out the perfect bunny, paid the cashier, and took the tag off. As soon as we walked outside he started crying. I didn't understand why he was so upset because he had just bought something with his own money. He simply said, "I can't believe I spent all of my money on a stuff animal." My heart melted. He concluded that he had worked so hard to earn that money and spending is painful! Y'all I needed that! Sometimes I just spend and don't feel any remorse. I say "Oh I needed that, and that too!". When in actuality I didn't need anything! What a valuable lesson to learn at such a young age!
5. We talk about how they can improve next week and the meeting is over!
Whew, y'all we literally follow the steps that #DaveRamsey created and add a little intentional meeting time and that's it. Dave has done all the hard work for you, follow through and you'll be fine!
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