It all started with a silly bet I made with my kids when they were roughly ages three, four, and five. That’s Max, Henry, and Annabel—oldest to youngest.
Once a child realizes that money can be traded for “stuff,” they seem to have a natural tendency to want to make that trade happen as soon as possible.
“These coins and bills are fun and all dad, but can we go get some toys and candy now? I mean right now—as much as I can get.”
I watched them immediately spend everything they ever received.
At the time, the five of us were living in a small apartment just so we could save money. I wanted to teach our kids the lesson that you should sacrifice to save, rather than spend, spend, spend. For motivation, I told the kids, “If you save $500, I’ll match it.”
I knew it would take at least two to three years to save $500
dollars unless they found a way to earn extra money. Their only real source of income was from birthday and holiday gifts.
I also wanted to see them trying to find ways to earn extra money beyond waiting for gifts twice a year. It was about that time we started to pay allowance for chores. When I needed some extra help for other miscellaneous chores, I was also known to pay extra.
If they weren’t being particularly helpful in a given week, we would remind them of the $500 challenge and sometimes it helped.
Over time, we found they cared more about chores because of the goal. More importantly, they cared more about saving their
money. We opened a savings account for each of them at the bank, and they began to deposit their money.
Click Follow to receive emails when this author adds content on Bublish
Comment on this Bubble
Your comment and a link to this bubble will also appear in your Facebook feed.