Our two children's KidsWealth Money System
I don’t know about you, but over the years my husband and I have done several different methods of teaching our children about money and how to manage it. We gone all the way from giving them a penny for doing individual tasks and chores, up to dealing with hundreds of dollars each month.
Jim and I read a book called, Money Matters for Parents and Their Kids by Ron and Judy Blue back in the early 90s. Our children were 8, 10, and 13 when we started. It was a great way to help us teach them how to handle money on a bigger scale. I can’t remember if we read this in this book or not, but it is said that if you want to teach your children about money, you have to entrust them with “real” money.
It was at this point when we began by figuring out what we would usually spend on them each month, then giving them this same amount of money to spend themselves each month. This meant they got money for things like candy at the store, all the way up to money they would have to spend on their own clothing.
We used a product back then that was like a big plastic binder and inside had six different plastic envelope dividers in it for various categories. We’ve weren’t able to relocate these binders for our two youngest children when it was time to make the big jump to money management, but we were able to find a product we’ve been very happy with.
It’s called the KidsWealth Money Kit. This kit is colorful, attractive, and comes with 5 different, sturdy vinyl envelopes that will take some rough handling. There is a record keeping notebook included that helps them begin to keep track of their money–where it came from and where it went! The picture at the top of this article is the system Jeremy and Grace use in our home.
This system has proven to help our children tremendously as they have learned how to keep records concerning their allowance and how to distribute it; how to record money they have earned doing odd jobs; how to figure money for their tithe each month; and when to know they are out of fun money!
While we didn’t begin this program until our two youngest were 9 and 11, I have a friend that started a simple version of this program when her youngest was 6.
The one thing we have personally added to our KidsWealth program was concerning the category of clothing. Instead of giving them real money, we include a separate ziploc bag for play money. We give them money for their clothing allowance each month, but do so with play money.
Since I take the children shopping–either to a physical store or online–and use my credit or debit card, we find that play money works well. It keeps from having to deal with large sums of money in the house or while we’re out shopping, although I have given them actual amounts of cash to shop with for clothing on several occasions. Sometimes, I just want them to “feel” what it’s like to give away their hard-earned cash!
Whenever I make a purchase for them, they simply give me the amount that was spent from their ziploc bag and I give them any change back that is necessary. It works very well here.
So, if you’re looking for a helpful way to teach your children about how to manage their money, I highly recommend the KidsWealth Money Kit. They’ve done a great job in taking a lot of the work out of it for you and me. I mean, why stress over this if you don’t have to!
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