Little Bitty Money

As I've mentioned before, Matt and have been working on a budget and really sticking to it and saving a lot of money. We have a family budget book that we are excited about - but so are the kids. They LOVE looking in our book to see how much money is in there. So, we decided maybe they should have their own little budgets. We werent sure they'd catch on to what we were trying to do, but, once again - they have surprised us!

Every week they get $3. One dollar has to go into their "Spend" envelope. One dollar goes into their "Save" envelope. And, one dollar goes to their "Share" envelope.

The "spend" money they can use however they wish. They can buy candy, toys or whatever. The hard part here is Matt and I not buying it for them (we're suckers.)

The share money is for charitable giving. When they get older, they can give it however they'd wish, but for now we've given them three choices. Their choices were to give it to the local animal shelter or buy food for the shelter, buy food for the food bank at church or give it in the offering in the church offering plate on Sunday mornings. They both are very excited about buying food for the food bank. We are suggesting that they save $10 and then we'll go shopping for the food bank.

The save money goes into their savings account at the bank. When they get $10 in their "save" envelope, we'll go to the bank. Our bank has popcorn and a little pop machine in it, so its a big deal to go into the bank. They also feel big handing the money to the bank teller.

A few weeks ago, I took the big boys with me to Kohls to buy a birthday gift for one of their friends. While we were there, Hamilton saw a Cat-in-the-Hat doll that he really wanted. They are $5 and support a charity. Normally, I would have gotten it for him because he REALLY wanted it, but I told him he had to save his money in the "spend" envelope to buy it. He was not really dissappointed that I didnt buy it for him, instead he was excited about figuring out how many weeks he had to save to buy him. So, last Saturday (the kids call it MONEY DAY!) after our lesson and our money hand-out we went to Kohl's and he bought his Cat-in-the-Hat doll. Then, when Harrison woke up from his nap, he HAD to have one too and was happy to spend his money to buy one! They LOVE their stuffed animal toy they bought with their own money, but both of them are looking forward to once again save money in their spend envelopes.

I think they are really learning about money. I was proud of how big they were at the checkout counter - handing their money to the cashier and getting THEIR receipt. They were so darn cute!

Every Saturday we have a lesson for our money day. Its nothing big - just something Matt and I talk to the kids about. Last week we talked about saving money and ways they could help save money in our budget book. They decided that they could make sure lights that were not being used were turned off. Also, they realized that when we throw food away, its wasting money. So - since then , if the sun is shining, we often hear "Mom - the sun is out and you dont really need this light on - we've got to save our money!" We think they are doing a great job - and we kinda miss the lights during the day :-)