Raising children is probably one of the toughest jobs a human being can endeavor to take on. That is if you take it seriously and come to the stark realization that you play an important and integral part into their success. Whether or not they become happy, productive and caring human beings rests very much so on our shoulders.
My goal was to raise happy productive children and to make sure I raised them so they could support themselves. Raising them so once I got them off my payroll they would have no need to come back on it! I don’t think as I was raising them I had any real plan of how I would go about that, but looking back, I realize there were some specific things I implemented as they were growing up that helped us to achieve that goal.
Some may argue that I have raised spoil ed children, and though I will totally agree with that, they are also very healthy and productive adults.
Teaching our children to budget started at about 10 years old. I think you could probably start sooner, but that is when I really started making them responsible for their own money. It started on vacations, we would give my son and daughter a set amount of money they could spend on souvenirs and snacks at stops. I would give them the entire amount upfront in an envelope. Starting at about 13 I would also give them their allocated budget for meals….if it was a long trip, I would dole it out 3 days at a time.
What I saw happen on those trips was much more selectivity on their part in what they spent their money on. I witnessed my son putting back a hat after looking at the price tag, saying he was not spending that much on a hat. I’m sure he would have gladly spent that much if it was my money.
I saw them take notice of prices on menus and decide they didn’t need a soda, water was free and that would allow them to get a dessert. It was not unusual for them to have money left over when we returned home. We made sure we gave them enough money to eat and buy a few things, but it was by no means enough to eat just everything they wanted and buy everything their heart desired….they had to make choices each day.
Once they started Junior High, I would give them a set amount of money for lunch for the week, leaving it up to them to manage the money to last. Once my son started high school he decided what he was getting was not enough. Instead of saying no, I asked him to come up with a budget and show me some reasonable prices for lunch and we would discuss increasing it. After realizing that boys eat much more than girls and him presenting a very reasonable list of places close to school to eat and their lunch specials, I agreed to an increase. The exercise here was not the increase in money, but allowing him to practice creating budget and researching exactly what it costs to eat each day.
When my children received money for birthday’s we would match any amount they wanted to put into their savings account. The agreement was they had to leave it at least a year, there were many years they took us up on that offer! Teaching them how to give up instant gratification for longer term purchases.
Though both of our children worked during high school, I wouldn’t let either of them get a job until my son’s Eagle Project was done and my Daughter’s Gold Award was finished. They were both in Scouts, so the life lessons learned there, were invaluable for their future. Providing for them to succeed both socially and academically we continued to provide for things that some parents would think were excessive, but it was a personal choice my husband and I decided to make.
Once they became drivers I added them to one of our credit cards and allowed them to buy their own school clothes up to a set budget. The warning was, if there were purchases on the card beyond what was agreed upon upfront, then the card would be taken away and they would figure out how to buy their own school clothes. Not once did we have an issue with excessive purchases. I saw them figure out that they did not need the name brand expensive jeans, or if they did, they could get by with one pair and the rest could be cheaper knock-offs. For those of you that don’t like to use credit cards, an envelope with the set amount of cash for clothes will work just as well.
When they started college, we determined how much we were willing to “chip in” on their living expenses, the remaining was up to them to figure out how to pay for with part time jobs. We never co-signed on any of their apartments. Both of them eventually moved back home to finish school, realizing that the freedom was not necessarily worth the money. Living at home provided they had extra money to spend, besides spending it on living expenses.
How we got them through college is a whole other blog post, but for now…I would recommend you start as early as possible with little ways to give them more control of their spending, getting them used to saving and making choices with their money. I’m sure there are other ways to teach children money management, but this is my life story at how we did it, and it seemed to work well with our two children. These small life lessons provided them well as adults.