My son is about to turn 10 and we just bought a program for him from Dave Ramsey for kids to begin to emphasize financial responsibility and learn how things work. We have explained to him that we have a massive amount of debt that we never wanted or intended but allowed ourselves to get into through some poor decisions. We've explained to him that credit cards are a bad idea for any reason and we intend to teach him to manage his money and work hard so he never "needs" one or uses one. Also we've explained he should never have any need for student loans, which I also feel are a predatory lending tactic similar to credit cards and that he should be able to pay for at least undergraduate degree(s) without going into debt - through our current college savings account, scholarships and hard work while in school. He is beginning the grasp this - I used the illustration that without student loans, we could take a large family vacation to Disney World and stay at the resorts for an entire week every single month if we didn't have student loan debt. That kinda opened his eyes a bit!
So what did you guys do to teach your kids this stuff? Specific examples would be great.
Our neighbors recently went out of state for a week and they asked him to feed their dog and cat (no catbox, it goes outside through the pet door or uses the toilet) and water their plants while they were gone. They initially offered him $5/day to do this, but we told them we thought that was way too much for such a simple task and negotiated downward to $3/day. They eventually ended up paying him $40, which is even MORE than $5/day. <sigh> We didn't want him to get into the idea that it is "easy" to make big money ($40 to him is a FORTUNE), we want to instill a work ethic.
Currently he gets $5/week for doing some simple chores - NOT an allowance! and when he's begun asking for some bigger toys, we've started offering him options of additional tasks to do around the house to improve his income. So far, he hasn't done much of that, but I'm hopeful that as he finds more things he wants, he'll take to work a bit more. He spent $30 on a crappy remote control helicopter from WalMart which I warned him was a bad idea and it would be a disappointment - and it was. It didn't work for crap, which is what I warned him. So now he's taking it back, and I hope he'll learn a lesson from that.
So hit me with some ideas.
So what did you guys do to teach your kids this stuff? Specific examples would be great.
Our neighbors recently went out of state for a week and they asked him to feed their dog and cat (no catbox, it goes outside through the pet door or uses the toilet) and water their plants while they were gone. They initially offered him $5/day to do this, but we told them we thought that was way too much for such a simple task and negotiated downward to $3/day. They eventually ended up paying him $40, which is even MORE than $5/day. <sigh> We didn't want him to get into the idea that it is "easy" to make big money ($40 to him is a FORTUNE), we want to instill a work ethic.
Currently he gets $5/week for doing some simple chores - NOT an allowance! and when he's begun asking for some bigger toys, we've started offering him options of additional tasks to do around the house to improve his income. So far, he hasn't done much of that, but I'm hopeful that as he finds more things he wants, he'll take to work a bit more. He spent $30 on a crappy remote control helicopter from WalMart which I warned him was a bad idea and it would be a disappointment - and it was. It didn't work for crap, which is what I warned him. So now he's taking it back, and I hope he'll learn a lesson from that.
So hit me with some ideas.