Today’s post comes to you from my son, J! He’s here to talk to you parents about kids who spend all their money.
Does your kid like to spend his or her money once they get it? If so, here is a tip for you.
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Have you ever heard a friend or relative say, “I’m bad with money.” (Or maybe you’ve said it yourself.)
Maybe you think that one can either be “good with money” or “bad with money.”
If you’re “bad with money,” that’s just the way it is. You can’t change it, so you might as well live it up!
Beyond the scope of money, you may also think you’re “not creative” or “bad at math” or that you “always forget people’s names.”
This is crap.
Let me repeat.
This is crap.
You CAN CHANGE.
Yes, even you.
Several weeks ago, my sister sent J a gift in the mail — the Harry Potter Lego Dimensions Team Pack. J is a HUGE Lego fan, so naturally Legos are a great gift for him.
When he received them, however, he told me that he didn’t have the rest of the parts necessary to use them. Apparently you need a starter pack, and oh, it’s available for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Wii U.
Yeah, we don’t have any of those.
I immediately stopped investigating how we could play with this toy, and we started brainstorming on what we could do instead.
Now what?
J decided to return the gift and get something else. Having no idea how much Lego Dimension Team Packs are worth, we headed to the store and hoped for the best. (Seriously, though, how much could it be? There were like four pieces in this tiny box.)
Imagine our delight when we found out the return value was $25 (!!!). We walked around the store for awhile, trying to find something to get instead. He picked up a few things, but there was nothing that he wanted that he could afford.
So we took a step back. I asked him what he really wanted.
For over a year, I have been paying J interest at the Bank of Mom.
He started with $45.00 and earned $1.35 the first month. (I pay 3% monthly.)
This month, he’s up to $231.99 and earned $6.76 in interest.
I print and email him a copy of the statement each month. (He has his own email address and when I send the statement, I add other notes and tips. Hopefully he will read these someday and remember what we talked about.)
Here’s his statement for this month:
Back in March, we went on a road trip and J calculated how much we spent. I thought it was great for him to be able to see exactly how much a vacation really costs.
So when we went to Virginia Beach a few weeks ago, I wanted to have him calculate the cost again, with a few tweaks.
During the trip, we collected all receipts in a folder. We didn’t attempt to do any worksheets or calculating while we were away! A few days after we got home, we sat down and filled out our new and improved trip log (once all of the EZ Pass transactions posted).
This time, we divided all of our receipts into categories. We ended up with seven groups: gas, tolls, groceries, eating out/snacks, household items and lodging.
He labeled each green box with the category. Then he used a running total approach with the register. This involves: