Carden turns six this week, and in honor of the occasion (and the fact that he's studying money in school this month), we decided to start paying him an allowance. Because he is our first child, I approached this in my typical first-time-parent manner: I read numerous articles about how to teach money management to kids, we devoted this week's FHE lesson to saving money for missions, I made a chart that breaks down the weekly amounts he has to save, donate, and spend. You get the idea. The interesting part of the process has been the discussions Tyler and I have had as we made each decision. One of our big marital adjustments has been in our attitudes about money, since we each had different ideas on what to do with it and needed to compromise. We want our kids to have the "right" attitude toward money, even though we're not totally sure what that is yet. Neither of us remember our parents teaching many concrete lessons about money, yet somehow we each absorbed different philosophies and habits.
All our financial angst is lost on Carden at this point. To house his newfound wealth, we bought him a piggy bank. He thinks his bank is cool. It's a Moonjar (http://www.moonjar.com/) with separate sections for Spend, Save, and Share. He likes to drop the coins in the slots and shake the box to hear them rattle around. He also got a bank "vault" from Grandma Vicki for his birthday, and he thinks that one is even cooler (Grandma presents are always cooler than parent presents). It sorts all the coins as you drop them in and then you have to use the real combination lock to open it, thus protecting it from the robbers he is sure are waiting for his back to be turned so they can pounce on his $6.57.
Since he's rolling in Valentine's and birthday money, I asked him what he wanted to spend it on. "I haven't decided yet," he told me. "I'm still thinking. Probably a game. Parcheesi."
Anybody know how to play Parcheesi?
All our financial angst is lost on Carden at this point. To house his newfound wealth, we bought him a piggy bank. He thinks his bank is cool. It's a Moonjar (http://www.moonjar.com/) with separate sections for Spend, Save, and Share. He likes to drop the coins in the slots and shake the box to hear them rattle around. He also got a bank "vault" from Grandma Vicki for his birthday, and he thinks that one is even cooler (Grandma presents are always cooler than parent presents). It sorts all the coins as you drop them in and then you have to use the real combination lock to open it, thus protecting it from the robbers he is sure are waiting for his back to be turned so they can pounce on his $6.57.
Since he's rolling in Valentine's and birthday money, I asked him what he wanted to spend it on. "I haven't decided yet," he told me. "I'm still thinking. Probably a game. Parcheesi."
Anybody know how to play Parcheesi?
1 comment:
You must have missed on out the money lessons from Mom and Dad because YOU NEVER DID THE PAPER ROUTE!!!! And you call yourself a Halverson. :)
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