The biggest benefit of allowance for us is that it has completely prevented the "I wants" when we are shopping. If they want something, they know they need to buy it with their money. It has been months since they have asked us to buy them something. At first they did blow money on cheap items, but now they are much more selective about how they spend their money.
For Valentine's Day, they got an influx of money. All they could talk about was buying some beyblades to battle each other. Those things are freaking expensive for some glorified spinning tops! For a stadium and two extra blades (tops), it was $40. The kids happily handed over $20 each to me and proudly told the Target employee they were buying it themselves.
The first two days with beyblades, I was ready to LOSE IT. World War 3 broke out over every battle, who got to use which beyblade, and the rules of the game. The fighting led to a disastrous bedtime where they both cried for 20 minutes because I took away the entire set and sent them to bed. After that, they knew I was serious about not fighting because it has become this magical item.
They've named their blades Blue Blastoff, Yellow Lightning, Red Fireball, and Green Bay Packers. (Don't worry, Packers are the bad guys.) They wake up wanting to play and go to bed wanting to play. They've skipped bedtime stories to play. They make up elaborate rules to the game.
When we envisioned giving them money to learn to purchase items wisely, this is exactly what we had in mind. Sure they made some mistakes (the face stickers that caused a rash) but they're learning lessons about money at the age of four that some adults haven't learned. All this for the low low price of $2 a week (times two).
8 comments:
Awesome!
We tried giving Michael an allowance, and after weeks of him saying he didn't want any money we decided to stop and we'll try again later. I'm glad it's worked out so well with your boys.
I have never heard to this magical toy.
And why are the Packers the bad guys?
Praise Jeebus the Packers were the bad guys. Phew, that was almost the end of our budding friendship.
This is exactly the kind of post that makes me say that you should write a book, because your blog is more helpful than any parenting book I've read!
It's also what keeps me coming back day after day. I always 1) learn something 2) laugh and 3) feel like a normal person for sometimes feeling like "losing it!"
I'm stashing all this away for when my boys are old enough to understand. Thanks, LauraC!
Love this post. And isn't that the truth to teach them young about money and how to be responsible. Teaching them the value of money is just as important - love it. We did the same with all our boys. We also tried to strive to say if you don't have the cash to buy it, you don't need it. Thank goodness my adult son is handling his money well. =)
I believe it was your past allowance posts that gave us the idea to do something similar. But we don't give real money. (Mostly because we are trying to tame our own budget while teaching them!)
Anyway, we use printed paper "bucks" that can be redeemed for various items of different "value": stickers, ice cream, an iTune, a movie in the theater, etc. After initially cashing in right away for the lower valued items, they started to quickly catch on to the concept of saving up.
It's one less lesson to try and teach a know-it-all older child. Or worse, teach a kid AFTER they have developed bad habits.
I've only heard of beyblades one other time:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/beyblades-ebay-auction#
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