Sep 10
3
Teaching Children about Money: Chapter 1 – Mistakes
When I was a kid my dad gave me a job stripping aluminum from a load of heater coils; copper tubing wrapped in aluminum coils. He had bought a trailer load of it as scrap metal. The metals as scrap were worth much more separately than combined so it was worth quite a bit to him to have us separate the two. He paid me $5/hour and I put in 4 hours before I couldn’t take it anymore.
I don’t remember what I spent the money on but I spent it.
Did I learn anything about money? It think I learned that spending it is fun. That’s about it.
In high school I got a job at Marie Calendar’s as a cook. Over the course of 2 years I made several thousand dollars and the only thing I could show for it was a bunch of concert t-shirts, a black guitar (still have it), and a 1981 Ford Fiesta. Again I learned that spending money can be fun but I honestly have no idea where 90% of it went.
Not until I was in my mid 20s did I realize that I had done it all wrong. I started thinking about business. I started reading business books. I learned a lot about investing in the stock market. I joined a small group of freelance developers in our first business venture, a development shop. I sold lots of random things on Ebay. I designed project after project and even got a few of them started. I even got serious and founded my own SEO company. Finally I learned that making money can be more fun than spending it.
I have determined that even though I don’t want my kids to learn it the hard way like I did, that’s the best way to learn it. So I have given my kids jobs and learning opportunities so that they can learn for themselves how to deal with money. And how to make money. I also try to give them really bad mistakes to make.
Like a few weeks ago, my daughter wanted to buy a pack of gum. You can get them at Smiths for $.79. She saw it for $1.09 at Walmart and thought she just had to have it. But she didn’t have any money with her so I offered to buy it and sell it to her for $2.00 when we got home.
My son is a little older and has had more exposure to earning and spending. He waited until a little later and had me buy him a big pack of 12 from Costco. I think his cost him about $.67 per pack.
I have learned some lessons that cost me a few thousand dollars here and there but I know people that have spent 10 and 20 times what I did to learn the same lessons. I am just hoping I can help my kids learn those same lessons for 10 to 20 times less than what it cost me.
So far it seems to be working. My daughter has decided that she wants to buy a gumball machine and is currently looking for a store that will let her put it there.
Related articles by Zemanta
- How To Raise Financially Responsible Children (forbes.com)
- You: Teaching children how to manage money (washingtonpost.com)
