This week, we’re finally going to do it. The King of Everything and I are going to walk into the bank and open a savings account for him.
He’s getting an allowance of $5 a week. It’s time he understood what money is all about. This fact was never clearer than this morning, when he casually told me I could just use my credit card to buy him a new pair of swim goggles. “That way, you wouldn’t have to use your money on it.” HUH?
I tried to explain to him the concept of money, about how when you don’t have any more, you don’t HAVE any more, a concept lost on many thirty-somethings I know. I bit my tongue and made not one snarky remark about the thousands and thousands of dollars his father owes us. I tried talking about money like a pie, and how I give more than half my pie to the landlady in rent every month. It didn’t make much sense to him. There was still enough pie left for him to have a piece!
Maybe, when he puts his money in the bank and watches how slowly five dollars a week grows towards that $25 BaKuGan he’s begging me to buy him, he’ll have a better appreciation for the value of money.
Momversation is dealing with the issue of kids and money. Join in the conversation, here or over there: what do you think about teaching kids about money?
I know, the time whips by. In my head, I’m still 16, and then I wake up and smell the dirty socks of a crazy little six year old and feel like a Talking Heads song… Well, how did I get here?
Christina,
I used a program called “KidsSave” for awhile to keep track of my kids’ allowances, which helped, since I didn’t always have cash on hand to give them each week. Like Single Mama NYC, I wish I could just use my debit card. LOL…
Jen
If only there really was a “credit card fairy”, lol. Theo is too small to make those kinds of comments, but I’m sure that they are on their way. Sooner than I’d like!