The Opposite of Spoiled

The Opposite of Spoiled is a book by Ron Leiber that I read a couple years ago in preparation for kids. Dave and I are fairly frugal but we rather stumbled into our financial frugality rather than chose it deliberately. This book gave me good ideas on how to introduce money to our kids in terms of financial security while also still emphasizing frugality. I'd recommend it!

Right off the bat they have you introduce savings into kids allowances: We give the girls $3 a week each, $1 for savings, $1 for donation (I'll be helping them pick something out when they're ~5 in), and $1 for spending. When the girls each had $2 in their spending jar, I let them take their money with them to the store with us. We walked up the aisles looking for things they could buy (this was definitely exciting to them) and decided that if they pooled their money they could buy one big cookie and a 4-pack of juice (a big treat for them) to share.

Here we are at the cash register as the girls get ready to pay for themselves. It was a good exercise in being brave, too.

Ellie got it. We got home and she immediately put her change back into her spending jar then pulled the dollars out of her other jars and told me, "I want to put these in here" pointing to the spending jar. Heh. I explained why not, and she took it cheerfully.

I really knew she got it though next time we were walking through the store: Avy pointed at something and said, "I want that!" Ellie turned to her and said, "No, Avy, you don't have enough awwowance yet."

Go Ellie! Neither of the girls really have the gimmeys but it was definitely encouraging to hear her spell out the whole point of the exercise. Donation is going to be the next fun part I imagine.