My three year old earned her her first allowance today. I didn’t plan it. Hubby and I thought we’d wait until four or five to start allowance, but the opportunity arose and……
Daughter was watching me clean the litter box. “I wanna do that” she said, so together we scooped and cleaned, and then washed our hands.
“Can you do that with me every time,” I asked?
“Yes Mommy,yes”
And so I counted out twenty-five pennies with her. Five pennies immediately went into her piggy bank. We talked about it going toward her first car when she is seventeen. (I’m not sure I want her to have a car a sixteen – that’s young!) As she gets older we’ll divide her savings into long term and short term so she can save towards items and see the rewards quickly – and still save for her car later.
Twenty pennies went into a little purse I found, and then into a secret place in her room.
Twenty-five cents per week for helping me clean the litter box.
Maybe by the time she is four she can clean the litter box by herself. We’ll see.
In the meantime she is learning about earning, saving, and, in the next couple of weeks, she’ll want to buy candy or bubbles or something at the dollar store.
I contemplated taking some out for rent and ‘taxes’ but thought those lessons could wait until she is a bit older. This needs to be a fun lesson after all.
In a previous blog post I wrote about teaching her to sit in the grocery cart to earn pennies. At the end of the shopping if she sat, she’d have a couple of pennies to use on the horse ride. If she fussed and whined, I’d take a penny or two away, so she’d have a short ride or … oh no,.. No ride at all! She learned fast to sit still in the cart. (Most of the time anyway).
Its fun teaching children about money. Not everyone agrees with this philosophy though, and in my next post I’ll talk about the other school of thought.