The book's take on allowances is one of our favorite parts. It basically says that an allowance is a way to practice managing money. It's not something that you pay for doing chores and it's not something that kids can just do whatever they want with. It's money that they get every week that they divide into three categories (save, spend, and share) and then use accordingly. The singular purpose is to educate them about using money responsibly. This struck a chord with us, so we decided to give it a try at some point. Mateo has been showing some interest in coins and money recently, so we thought we'd start up the allowance and see what happens.
This was our first week of doing it, and we started by deciding where Mateo wanted to share his money. He decided on his own that he wanted to help kitties at the Humane Society. We counted up the change he's been collecting, plus the third of his allowance that we had just give him, and then went to the Humane Society to donate it. He was SO proud of himself and so excited about the little thank you packet they gave him that it could hardly have been cuter.
We also went to the bank to get a bunch of $1 bills, for future allowance giving, and ended up opening a savings account for him. We started him off with $25 and he added the saving part of his allowance at the end. We figure we'll go periodically, maybe every time he saves up $10, to make deposits.
Overall, it was a very cool morning. We feel really good about getting this started in a fun way. When he gets a little older, we can try some of the other ideas in the 5 to 8 year old section, but for now, this is good. Here are some photos:
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| Sorting change... |
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| Future allowances all together! |
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| So proud of himself! |
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| Proud new savings account owner :) |
1 comment:
starting him out on a good path - wonderful. Bubbe
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