When Joshua and I got married, we had no idea how to really handle our income. We spent what we earned and vaguely thought of a savings account. "Budget" was a dirty word, and even if we'd realized it wasn't, we didn't understand how to implement one.
We knew we wanted to carefully consider finance training with our children, but we weren't 100% sure where to start.
Joshua and I agreed that we don't really want to pursue the route of 'doing chores equals income'. We want our children to understand that our house is a blessing and we should care for it as such, making it honoring to those who live here and all those who visit.
In short, we aren't willing to pay them to keep their rooms clean, help stack dishes, or wipe down the bathroom. We deem these things as a necessary part of being a responsible human. We wanted more than 'just do your chores' to factor into the allowance equation.
But that left us with still no idea how to allot money to them. It's challenging to teach monetary responsibility when it's all theoretical and no practical.
When the kids started getting old enough to want their own pocket change
so they could make their own purchases, I turned to the ever-reliable
Internets to explore how those who had gone before us handled
'allowances'.
Y'all, the Internets had a lot to say about How You Should(n't) Pay Your Child and Why You Should(n't) Pay Your Child. It was oh.vur.well.ming.
You know how when you read parenting books and this paragraph resonates bigly but this paragraph is just so far beyond all that makes sense that you wonder why you ever picked up that book to begin with? Well, how and why you do or don't pay your kids is the same way. We took in a ga-jillion different perspectives, gleaned the parts we liked the bestest, modified it all to fit our family, then jumped in.
The three older children have a jar. Each jar contains 30 one dollar bills. We keep these jars sitting in the middle of our school room table, highly visible to their owners. The kids have the opportunity to keep all those dollars or lose them based on choices that are either responsible or irresponsible.
The thought here is that one day, these not-as-little-as-they-once-were people of mine will go out into the world and get jobs. In the workforce, your boss doesn't sit down with you and tell you he'll pay you 'x' amount for this task and 'x' amount for that task. He agrees to pay you an hourly wage. If you don't do your job well and right, you lose it. Responsible people do their jobs well and right and have an income to show for it.
So now we had to define what our kids' jobs were. In our family, the job of the kid is to do their daily chores using initiative (making the first move without being asked) and diligence (working hard to accomplish a task). To be thorough (completing a job all the way) in school assignments. To responsibly (doing what they know they should do) see to self-care.
As children meet these daily expectations, they keep their dollar. Obviously, there is room for grace and mercy from Joshua and I. We all have bad days, and on those days, we look at the heart of the child to determine whether the dollar stays or gets pulled.
On payday, I sit down with the kids and we count out the ones that are remaining in their jars. They are required to put 10% of the full thirty (even if they actually get less than that at the end of the month) into savings and another 10% of the full thirty towards giving. As I give them their spending money, I always ask if they want to put any extra into savings or giving. Then I record their savings in our record log.
Here's the part this kids love: At the end of each quarter, Joshua and I make a deposit into their savings account equal to everything they've put into savings that quarter. Realistically, we'll have to cap that at some point, but for now, it's so fun for them to see their savings matched dollar for dollar and their account grow.
After the first month or so, Anna began to understand what was going on and really wanted in on the action. We have a set amount for her each month, though not as much as the older three, and she has proven to be our most frugal child. She puts into savings only the minimum amount, but she then pockets the rest. And then, aside from the occasional pack of gum, she just lets it accumulate. She's saving for something, but she doesn't know what yet.
Naturally, Daniel needed to have his own savings envelope and record log. We put two dollars a month into his savings for him and he keeps a dollar in the wallet that his brother gave him. It's the same dollar from month to month usually, but he's just thrilled to have his own money. When he is old enough to cycle into the game, he will have a little bit in his saving account to give him a boost.
This money that the kids are saving? It's for down the road. Unless they break a window or lose a library book, the money is untouchable for now. There will be trips and big ticket items the kids are interested in as they travel into their teen years. This particular savings account is to help with things of that nature.
There have been a few tweaks along the way. I'm positive there will be more at the kids get older. But for this moment, this is what is working quite well for us. I'm so thankful to be able to do this with them and I look forward to studying stewardship with them in another couple of years. I want my kiddos to walk out into the world as young adults with a mindset of money management rather than managed by money.
Here's to a plan to start with...
