Giving is a core pillar in our money management for our kids. Kids often learn about the idea of giving from a young age. Each holiday season, many preschools or organized sport groups will run food drives; that was an early concrete experience for mine. We loved the idea of giving food to people who didn't have enough for Thanksgiving. It didn't take long for my littles to catch nearly every donation box in town. Before I knew it, we were shopping for Toys for Tots, donating old winter things to coat drives, grabbing extra cans at the grocery store for the food drive. At first, it was great...
Soon, it became expensive. Thus started a shift in our understanding of giving. It's great to give! It feels good to help and give, but even when we have good intentions with our money, if we don't have it, we can't give it. That was a really tough one for my generous kiddos. It was a fun time to revisit Shel Silverstein's class, The Giving Tree. While not its most prominent message, when the tree runs out, it's got nothing left to give! Now back to working on financial literacy.
Each payday, one of the five $1 bills goes into a jar for Giving. Similarly to Savings, this is an immediate 20% allocation. We feel it helps promotes generosity and contains expenses to 60%. Every so often, we'll run a "match" where we multiply their donations. The kids love being able to choose where their saved Giving jar goes and to participate in the physical giving of what they've set aside.
Stick around to see how we give!
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