Money

I started to dig into money education myself back in 2020.  I was working from home during lockdown so with the time I gained no longer commuting, I'd walk and podcast.  It was staggering to me how much information is out there regarding investing, tax planning, general strategy and education, and how little I knew.  I mentioned my parents are savers, so I was generally "good" with money.  I don't overspend, I have a budget, I'm familiar with our expenses, where our money goes, etc.  I'd never learned how to get my money to work for me though.  I decided then, back when my oldest was just 2 years old, that I would teach mine whatever I could to be more financially literate than I'd been to that point.  

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Since Money Management and Financial Literacy are the goals, we have a weekly pay day.  It's not contingent upon a chore list, but rather money we receive being part of the business that is our home.  We each do work to help our household run, and our kids get compensated for that.  They are able to earn extra money by doing extra things.  For example, we just moved into a house with an unnecessary amount of oak trees, so I offered $5/bag they filled on their own.  Now, in hindsight, $5 was too much, but in my defense, it'd been years since I'd had leaves to bag and didn't realize how much they'd be able to earn.  They wanted money for holiday shopping so they worked their butts off!  

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I'm sure there are some who I've lost already: "free money?!" or "nobody pays me to clean my own house!".  But I mentioned that my goal here is Money Management and Financial Literacy.  There are many ways to teach a tiny about personal responsibility, maintaining and respecting your space.  For our family, money is not part of that lesson.  We try to focus on intrinsic reward and reasoning when it comes to maintaining the business that is our home.

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Back to our philosophy!  We wanted giving and saving to be pillars for our kid's money education.  The third and most complex pillar, we call "Flow".  "Flow" is that money that you use for necessities, or when there's a bit extra, elective expenses.  It's that bucket of which you need to be aware of your upcoming expenses, say Mom's birthday, and plan for those purchases.  It's the bucket that empties if you buy too many Paw Patrol toys.  It's the bucket that, if your mom overpromises $5/bag for raking and it ends up over flowing, you might take your extra to put in savings or buy that new pair of shoes you've been eyeing.  Maybe, it's that bucket you turn into a mini-savings to use as a vessel for investing.  That's our fourth bucket, the one we usually know least about, but we're told is so important to start early.

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Who knows if I'm on the right track with this philosophy?  But this is one topic where I'd really like the glass to be half full.