Something weird about me is that I really enjoy keeping track of our money. It is actually my favorite household task (except when I have to call people about questions with bills--not fun.) Every Tuesday, I do the finances. That means collecting all the receipts from the depths of my purse and writing them down in my little financial notebook where we keep track of our budget, figuring out our checkbook balance, paying the bills, etc. I won't say I love all the numbers that show up when I do the finances but it gives me some kind of feeling of control over our money. Don't we all want to feel in control of our money instead of the other way around?
So it's probably not too surprising that one of my goals in life is to teach my children how to be responsible with their money. I'm not sure how successful I've been but one of the things I've done is to have a lesson on our family finances. I've done this maybe two times over the last 15 years and should really do it more regularly.
Last night we did this again with our children during our family night. Beforehand, I typed up a paper detailing how much income we get each month and then all the ways we spend it. We swore them to secrecy on the details since I really don't think it's appropriate for children to be talking about how much money their parents make. One of my children wasn't sure she could keep it a secret but I wasn't too worried since numbers aren't her strong point. Hopefully they took it seriously.
Then I gave everyone a copy of the budget I had prepared. I had previously counted out our gross monthly income (so we could subtract taxes) in play money and then passed out part of the money to every child. My goal was to make the numbers a little more real by going through the budget line by line and watching the play money disappear as we paid each bill.
Here are some things I wanted them to learn as we went through the budget:
a. Saving money is part of our budget. I should have stressed that automatic withdrawals help with this so I'll have to bring that up sometime. We talked about how we need to save for retirement so they don't have to support us in our old age! Plus, we also save additionally for unexpected expenses including a large amount if something happened to our monthly paycheck.
b. Paying charitable donations and tithing is part of our budget. This is simply just the right thing to do. However, I've heard this idea that when we are generous with our money, God can be more generous with us. He can trust us to help others. Here's a really good article on this topic that talks about how generous people become richer and not just in money: http://magazine.byu.edu/?act=view&a=2441. I highly recommend it.
c. Debt payments limit our options. We have tried really hard in our marriage not to have debt. I feel very grateful to be united with my husband on this topic. So we talked about how our budget would have to change if we had certain debt payments to make every month.
d. God has blessed us to have enough. Our medical bills are higher than average because of our youngest daughter and her medical issues. This year, we had a ton of other medical bills for our other children because of a shoulder surgery, orthodontics for two children, acne medication, wisdom teeth removal for two children, plus the usual stuff for my youngest. Ever since those medical bills have started coming in, we have been blessed with more income to cover all those bills. We have truly been blessed.
e. The money disappears quickly! Hopefully most adults have figured this out by now but I'm pretty sure most kids don't know this. I know I used to lie awake at night at the age of 10 or so, trying to figure out how my parents spent their money and why they never seemed to have quite enough! I was completely clueless. When I asked my oldest son what he remembered from a similar lesson I gave some years ago, that is what he remembered--the money all disappears.
f. Education is really important. An education gives you so many more options in the world and makes it so much easier to support a family.
I don't know how much my children absorbed. I'll ask them in a few days what they remember. And I'll do another post sometime on other things we do to help them manage money. But, I'm hopeful that this gives them a better grip on the ways we can spend our money. Maybe they'll even start turning off the lights when they leave the room!
So it's probably not too surprising that one of my goals in life is to teach my children how to be responsible with their money. I'm not sure how successful I've been but one of the things I've done is to have a lesson on our family finances. I've done this maybe two times over the last 15 years and should really do it more regularly.
Last night we did this again with our children during our family night. Beforehand, I typed up a paper detailing how much income we get each month and then all the ways we spend it. We swore them to secrecy on the details since I really don't think it's appropriate for children to be talking about how much money their parents make. One of my children wasn't sure she could keep it a secret but I wasn't too worried since numbers aren't her strong point. Hopefully they took it seriously.
Then I gave everyone a copy of the budget I had prepared. I had previously counted out our gross monthly income (so we could subtract taxes) in play money and then passed out part of the money to every child. My goal was to make the numbers a little more real by going through the budget line by line and watching the play money disappear as we paid each bill.
Here are some things I wanted them to learn as we went through the budget:
a. Saving money is part of our budget. I should have stressed that automatic withdrawals help with this so I'll have to bring that up sometime. We talked about how we need to save for retirement so they don't have to support us in our old age! Plus, we also save additionally for unexpected expenses including a large amount if something happened to our monthly paycheck.
b. Paying charitable donations and tithing is part of our budget. This is simply just the right thing to do. However, I've heard this idea that when we are generous with our money, God can be more generous with us. He can trust us to help others. Here's a really good article on this topic that talks about how generous people become richer and not just in money: http://magazine.byu.edu/?act=view&a=2441. I highly recommend it.
c. Debt payments limit our options. We have tried really hard in our marriage not to have debt. I feel very grateful to be united with my husband on this topic. So we talked about how our budget would have to change if we had certain debt payments to make every month.
d. God has blessed us to have enough. Our medical bills are higher than average because of our youngest daughter and her medical issues. This year, we had a ton of other medical bills for our other children because of a shoulder surgery, orthodontics for two children, acne medication, wisdom teeth removal for two children, plus the usual stuff for my youngest. Ever since those medical bills have started coming in, we have been blessed with more income to cover all those bills. We have truly been blessed.
e. The money disappears quickly! Hopefully most adults have figured this out by now but I'm pretty sure most kids don't know this. I know I used to lie awake at night at the age of 10 or so, trying to figure out how my parents spent their money and why they never seemed to have quite enough! I was completely clueless. When I asked my oldest son what he remembered from a similar lesson I gave some years ago, that is what he remembered--the money all disappears.
f. Education is really important. An education gives you so many more options in the world and makes it so much easier to support a family.
I don't know how much my children absorbed. I'll ask them in a few days what they remember. And I'll do another post sometime on other things we do to help them manage money. But, I'm hopeful that this gives them a better grip on the ways we can spend our money. Maybe they'll even start turning off the lights when they leave the room!
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