Money Lessons for Little Folks

So, last weekend my family and I were up in the Catskill Mountains, in upstate New York, at a family-style resort we’ve been going to, on and off, my whole life (my dad used to go there as a teen, that’s how long we’ve been patrons of this particular spot). By “family” I mean a lot of us–my parents, my sister, her boyfriend, her kids, her boyfriend’s kid, my brother and his wife and new-ish baby, and me and my boys.

I’ve written about this sort of vacation before, and I’ll write about the whole multi-generational family vacay again, I’m sure, but for now I bring it up because it was yet another chance for my boys to take in little tiny lessons about money. Specifically, the quarters they asked for so they could feed the machines in the game room and increase their stash of rubber bracelets, fake rings, and sticky frogs. As it was vacation, we were liberal with dips into our pockets for extra quarters after they ran out of the modest amount they extracted from their piggy banks at home.

But it was interesting to watch, especially as I’d just written a piece for the website DailyWorth.com about teaching small money lessons to kids. Not big teaching moments: we weren’t drawing up lessons about compound interest or how the Fed works (which I don’t always get myself). But little ones, like the value of a quarter, a dollar, a couple of bucks. Here’s what I wrote for DailyWorth:

I like to treat my five- and seven-year-old sons, but I don’t want them to believe Silly Bandz fall from heaven, or that my wallet is a magic dollar dispenser. So every time they troll the grocery store with me or get tempted by the snacks for sale at summer camp, I try to impart little money lessons—and they’re actually adding up.

• Dollars and sense. Candy and ice cream at day camp are usually a dollar or less, and my sons didn’t understand why I was reluctant to just hand over a buck or two. So I totted it up for them: $1 per boy, per day, comes to $10 a week. That number produced newfound respect for how much their snacks really cost. And respect is where responsible spending starts.
• Size matters. The other day, I tossed a loaf of raisin bread in the grocery cart, remarking that it cost $3.50 a loaf. My seven-year-old piped up: “The Subway sandwich at camp is $3.50.” Ding! “That’s one sandwich,” I said. “This is a whole loaf of bread—breakfast for you and your brother all week.” And he got it. I could see him mentally comparing the idea of all those breakfasts against a measly six-inch hero.
• No matter how you slice it… I sometimes let the kids buy pizza ($2 a slice)—but I usually stop them at one slice (they want more for competition’s sake with their friends, not because they’re hungry). I tell them: $2 may not be much money, but $4 is too much for a lunch they won’t finish, especially when I have perfectly good food at home. I have to repeat myself (often!), but the other day I heard my older son say to the little guy, “You don’t need two slices of pizza for lunch, you know.”

Of course, I get regular reminders that this is a big learning curve for them—and me. Yesterday was supposed to be Carnival Day at camp, and I gave the kids $5 for the games and activities. Well, the carnival was postponed due to bad weather, but guess who spent the $5 on candy anyway? Sigh. One step forward, two steps back.

Since the last time we went upstate to this particular resort, in those ancient, lovely mountains, we didn’t have a lot of things. We didn’t have, for example, the experience of my father undergoing (successful!) surgery for lung cancer. We also didn’t have my newest nephew, Nico, or know what college my older nephew Nicholas was going to. The point is, we’re growing, we’re changing, we’re together.

And we’re thrifty!