Money Lessons

We’ve been having some interesting financial literacy lessons over here.  Our crew gets allowance, and they are free to (mostly) spend it as they choose.  And recently their desires have been outpacing their allowance, so we’ve been talking about how that plays out in the adult world.  Both the big kids have previously not been interested in passing off any of their toys.  Especially the items they bought with their allowance, they weren’t ready to think of freecycling or donating or sharing with friends.

I, on the other hand, love getting rid of things.  I love feeling like our home is clean and organized and comfortable.  Hence, I finally had a brainstorm about a system that could help all of us.  Zachary wanted to set up a table out front to sell toys he didn’t want.  Though I certainly support his spirit of entrepreneurship, he was setting out single legos, and then waiting for people to walk by, and I just couldn’t not support his spirit in some way.  So, I told all the children I would pay them (garage sale prices) for any toys that were willing to get rid of.  Then, I would freecycle the toys.

After an afternoon of cleaning, we passed along several boxes of smaller toys, 3 larger My Little Pony houses, and we were finally shed of the dreaded My Little Pony Crystal Rainbow Castle!  Yeah!  Marching bands played in my head as I freecycled that.  I freecycled that for Zoe over a year ago.  It has gotten many hours of play, and now is being loved by another lucky daughter of a freecycling Mommy.

Then Monkey and I had a discussion about how much she had paid with her allowance for the toys she passed along, and how much I was paying her.  Heaven only knows if any of the idea stuck for her this time, but these are ongoing, life-long discussions, and this was a good part of the process.

Though I personally dislike hunks of plastic made in China coming into our home, I am grateful that Monkey is amazingly generous with her money.  Yessa only started getting her own allowance in the last 5 months.  Prior to that, Zoe would always give Yessa money to buy something when the older kids were using their allowance.  It seems that this generosity at least partially comes from knowing she has control over her own money.  Feeling free to give in any sense, is very freeing overall.

Anyway, I came across this blog:  Get Rich Slowly, and since April is Financial Literacy Month, he has a great post with links to all sorts of basic, and not-so-basic information, I thought I’d share with you all.

For those of you to whom the Easter Bunny pays a visit, I hope the fluffy guy is generous.