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My Story: Mom, I Need a Bigger Allowance
When I read "For the Fun of It" by Kimberly Paulk about saving money with kids, I thought about the way we taught my daughter a good lesson about money, and I received help that I needed and the associated time savings from having her help me.
One day, when my daughter was in middle school, she came in with a serious look on her face and announced, "Mom," she said, "We need to talk. I'm a pre-teen now, and I really need a bigger allowance. I have expenses."
Her father and I weren't Scrooges. At age five, we began giving her an allowance and assigning chores she had to accomplish each week around the house. As her age increased each year, her allowance grew by an equivalent dollar amount, until she was then receiving $11 per week. However, her lament was, "But you make me put half into my savings account."
Yes, nasty, heartless parents that we are, we've always made her deposit half of her allowance into her savings account. Our cruelty reached such proportions that when Beanie Babies were all the rage, our daughter had to wait until she'd received two weeks' worth of spending money before she could even afford one at their non-inflated (okay, let's just say regular) price.
Now, as an almost-teen, she'd canvassed her friends and determined she needed a bigger allowance.
"I've learned my lesson about savings. You and dad have taught me well. But now, I need more spending money."
"But are you ready to do more to get it?"
"What do you mean?"
As a working mother, I thought this was the perfect time to implement a new plan to teach her about consumerism and give me the kind of extra help I really needed.
My plan was simple. Each week's Sunday paper is filled with coupon pullouts. If my daughter would cut out the coupons, file them in the coupon holder, match each week's grocery list with the coupons needed before we left for the store, help me shop, then help me put the items away when we arrived back home, she could keep the coupon money that we earned.
"What's the catch?" she asked.
"You have to do every step to get the money," I replied. Just cutting out coupons and filing wasn't enough. Even matching coupons to the list wouldn't cut it. Nope, she had to go through the mega-grocery store aisles with me, find the best priced item, help me calculate which size was really the best deal, stand in line behind all the other grocery carts, load up the car trunk, unload it again, and help put everything away.
"You mean I have to go or nothing counts?"
"That's exactly what I mean," I replied. "Oh, and you have to put half the money earned into your bank account."
"That means I'll hardly get anything," she moaned. "I'm back where I started."
Not exactly. I explained how when I used coupons I saved at least ten percent of my grocery bill. Then I brought her into the real world and told her how much it actually cost to feed our family each week. The numbers astounded her, especially what just ten percent would amount to.
"And that's just if ten percent is saved," I reminded. "I've often saved much more. And if you go the extra mile and do the work required for mail-in refunds, the savings can be even greater."
She was hooked. My daughter became passionate about being the first to touch the Sunday paper, pulling out her prospective payoffs before anyone could accidentally lose any coupons. Even with saving half, she found her budget woes eased quite a bit. And the times when she didn't want to finish the whole process, choosing to stay home instead of sharing the grocery shopping chores with me, she lost out. That didn't happen often.
On the whole, it was a great process, and it taught her to follow through and reap the rewards. She's also learned real world economics, how much it costs to feed a household, and why mothers sometimes chose generic items instead of brand names because the unit pricing is better (this is one she particularly didn't find enjoyable, since it meant no coupon would be used). Best of all, she saved over $400 in the first two years from just her coupon efforts.
Parents who use coupons for budgeting always ask, "But how could you afford to lose the money?" Easy, I made her use her earnings to buy many of the things I would have bought for her before. For example, she wanted a new T-shirt to match the kids at school. I explained that she's welcome to buy it with her money. So, in the end, I didn't buy all those incidental things I used to pay for, and she made a conscious decision about whether or not it was important enough to spend her money.
And the more gallons of milk that she has to lug from the dairy case to the cart to the car to the house, the less I have to do.
"My Story" is a regular feature of The Dollar Stretcher. If you have a story that could help save time or money, please send it by mailto:MyStory@stretcher.com
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