Financial Peace Pays Off

Basia has participated in the Financial Peace for Kids lessons. She has her "Give," "Save," and "Spend" envelopes. She does chores for a 50 cent commission. She has gone from a kid who HAD to go to Target or Savers the second a dollar bill touched her hand to a kid who is enjoying having her savings grow.

One exercise the book had her do was to come up with a list of things she wants and how much they cost and how long it will take to save for them. Basia's list included mostly Playmobil items, an Indian Jones Lego set, and a giant stuffed bunny. She chose a small Playmobil item as her first goal. With weeks of savings and an extra boost from a Valentine's gift from Grandma, she got her savings up to $28, which is HUGE for Basia.

We went onto amazon.com and looked through all the things she could buy with that amount of money. For each item I showed her, she wanted to know how much money she would have left.
She ended up choosing the Playmobil hospital accessory that let her keep the most amount of money in her envelope. Who is this child?? It's a pretty big moment when all that hard work and temptation-resisting finally pays off!

*Disclaimer: My son, who happens to always have a stash of cash from saving for no particular purchase has had the opposite happen since Financial Peace. Now he has his own list (games and video games and Lego sets) and knows that he could have been buying things for himself all along. His cash is gone, and he is now $3 in DEBT!!! after a trip to a store, where a friend fronted him some money for a game expansion set. He got to work a few hours to work some of the debt off, and now he gets to know what it feels like to do his chores when all the money he will be earning will be going to someone else.