Friday, November 20, 2009

Spending Money

Here at our place we’ve started trying to teach our kids the importance of money. How hard it is to earn it, how long it takes to save it, how important it is to tithe it – that sort of thing. Now, since we’re no “global economy” over here and since Luke is still 4 and Avery just turned 2 – our lists of chores that earn money are somewhat limited – but that’s OK cause money still gets earned!

The kids each get $.50 for feeding Jane. I know that seems kind high for the amount of work, but it just happened that way and it’s hard to give your kids a pay cut. This used to be solely Luke’s job, but as Avery gets older she just knows she can do everything her big brother can do, and so she wants to feed Jane too and earn her quarters. So she does.

The kids also get a bit of help from their grandparents who save their change and then divide it among their grandchildren. It’s great fun for Luke to count the coins – although there have been some breakdowns due to the fact that he doesn’t really understand the changing of 4 quarters to dollar bills and that those are the same. He really just likes quarters, but he's learning!

All of this money saving, spending and tithing has finally gotten Luke to the place where he had enough money to buy something he wanted REALLY bad!!! GeoTrax – what are GeoTrax you might ask?! They are a wonderful FisherPrice remote controled toy train that you can check out here if you have children who are still the age to play with trains!

So yesterday we counted out all of Luke’s money – changed the quarters for bills – you should have heard me trying to explain how it’s really much easier to take bills to the store rather than a whole pickle jar full of quarters – and headed out to Target (Luke’s new favorite place to shop!) with Luke’s $77 to buy some brand new GeoTrax! What a glorious experience!

It was fun for both of us I think. He wanted to put the boxes in the cart, and then put them on the belt at the checkout, and he even counted out the money (with a little help) and paid the check out girl! Our check out girl was very patient with him and I think she was enjoying herself as much as I was watching him!

So now we have our first set – you can get them all, the sets attach to each other – of new trains. Time to pack up some of the Thomas the Train stuff and put it away in the attic or send it on to some of our “friends who don’t have any Thomas stuff!” This will make room for the new train sets!

Kinda makes me sad in a way – he’s loved and played with that Thomas stuff for many years now – I guess he’s growing up!

4 comments:

Luke, Avery, Monroe's Nanny said...

I am SO proud of Luke!! Way to go, buddy!!! I'm also proud of how you & David are training my grandbabies. Keep up the good work!

Unknown said...

great story, Holly! Don't be sad about Thomas... by the time Luke gets grown, he'll have a whole universe of toys that will never lose their value. We still have Jess and Sean's Superman pajamas from when they were Luke's age...

Leslie Carol said...

Too sweet girl!!!! Great parenting! Just as you are proud parents, your Father is a proud Parent of you and David too!

Nan said...

We love GoeTrax at our home! The take up the whole living room when we drag them out!