Comments on: Why I Let My Kids Go Into Debt

By: Sue H.

Sue H. — Wed, 07 Feb 2024 22:25:30 +0000

I’m a little late to comment but wanted to add some thoughts. I have been a strong supporter of Scholastic book fairs for years. As many said, it provides books for our teachers’ classrooms and at one book fair per year our teachers even list 4-5 books they would like gifted to them, if a parent is so inclined. Each month, each flyer has/had a $1 or $2 book that was featured for the month. I would often buy multiples of these books from multiple flyers (using the online ordering system which shows flyers across all grades) and give them to my kids’ teachers. The teachers were extremely thankful.

With four kids, I had such a large collection of books over time that as the kids outgrew the younger books I boxed them up and donated them to the school (younger grades) and to a non-profit that runs a headstart program.

The book fair sold Harry Potter illustrated books when they were first being released (one every year or so because the illustrations took so long). I couldn’t find them elsewhere at the time and was glad Scholastic had them. I gifted a set to the 5th grade classroom and the teacher told me her kids created a waiting list to read them. I encourage anyone who hasn’t seen them to check them out! They are large books with full color illustrations and probably the most beautiful children’s books I’ve seen. It’s an example where Scholastic was the link that encouraged me to provide them to the teacher, and now her entire class can enjoy them for years.
https://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Illustrated-Collection-1-5/dp/B0BHXJJBKP

This post may sound like “I gave this” and “I gave that”, which isn’t my point. Scholastic is the mechanism that allowed me to gift hundreds of books to my kids’ classrooms over the years, and in one large donation. Could I have bought books off Amazon or a local store? Sure, but I wouldn’t have had the monthly themes, the recommendations of popular authors and new authors, the $1/$2 books each month that made it so easy to donate, the direct shipping to the teacher, etc.

By: Carolyn

Carolyn — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 13:59:58 +0000

Great job teaching your children about the importance managing their own money.
I was raised in a large family where money was tight, and I learned how important it was to spend wisely. My sisters and my brother, all got part time jobs when we were old enough and we understood how important it was to do a good job and to save some money as well as spend it wisely. I remember how much I hated a couple of jobs that I had doing cleaning at a local resort, people can be really disgusting in terms of the messes they left in the rental units, but it taught me how important it was to get a good education and training so that I would not be doing that for the rest of my life, as well as being able to afford to retire when I got older. The good habits last a lifetime. My husband and I are both retired now, he is collecting multiple retirement payments each month, our house and vehicles are paid for, but we still manage our finances wisely. We do eat out when we choose to, but we eat 95% of our meals at home. We have a garden, we can fruits and vegetables to preserve them, we do our own yard work, snow removal and we share the cooking and household chores. I cut his hair and he cuts mine for me. I don’t think we are being cheap, by doing that, I actually enjoy cutting hair, and I regularly give my two grandsons their haircuts. I knit, sew and do other projects that I enjoy, plus we get regular exercise, as well as eating healthy. So I am definitely a firm believer that raising your children to become responsible adults is your most important job as a parent.

By: Maya

Maya — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 19:16:13 +0000

I’m sorry – please ignore my message, it was harsh. This post just triggered some of my own memories of my (abusive – emotionally / financially) childhood that I projected. You know your kids best and each situation is different. Please accept my apology.

By: Stephdwagner

Stephdwagner — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 17:53:50 +0000

Absolutely love this post and the way you’re moving through these financial lessons with them so young. As a huge lover of those scholastic book fairs when I was a kid, it was SO thrilling to me when I could use my own earned money to go in and feel like such an adult by purchasing the thing I chose and shopped for on my own. Great life long lesson and you’re also instilling independence, responsibility and work ethic at the same time.

By: Bonnie

Bonnie — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 03:46:28 +0000

In reply to Jeanne.

It sounds like fun to me! She stated:
Mom and dad pay for everything you need, including: clothing, shelter, toys, books, games, healthcare, and admission to places like museums and county fairs. We even provide food!

The kids are getting toys, books, games, entry to museums… Just not all the overpriced extras when kids are out, that often are not great values.
Yep, scholastic donates to schools but it really organizes community to support the school…it made $1.62 BILLION last year and expects 10% more for 2023.

By: Erin

Erin — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 13:49:05 +0000

We use a similar money system with our kids, ages 8 and 9, including having some required chores and additional chores they can do to earn money. They have Saturday morning unpaid chores that were taking forever so we started using a bonus system. If their chores were done well in X number of minutes, they get $1. So far, this has worked amazingly!

We had one of those Real Life Learning Opportunities with my son at school last year where he was messing around with the electric pencil sharpener at school and broke it. We talked with him about it and explained that he would have to cover the cost to replace it, and then he pulled the dollars out of his wallet and realized he’d have only $1 of his own money left after paying for the new pencil sharpener. You may have heard him wailing from wherever you were at that time. It was one of those tough parenting moments as we could have easily paid for the new pencil sharpener and let him keep his money, but knew the lesson wouldn’t land the same as if he paid for it himself. The lesson definitely landed.

By: Liz Frugalwoods

Liz Frugalwoods — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 16:30:44 +0000

In reply to Danielle.

For friend’s birthday parties, I do one of two things:
1) If I find toys/puzzles/books still in their packages/with tags on at yard sales or the thrift store, we gift those.
2) If not, I help my kids select a gift online that they think their friend will enjoy and that’s within budget. It’s been a great opportunity for them to learn about comparison shopping and reading descriptions of things online.

In either instance, I pay for the gifts.

By: Danielle

Danielle — Sun, 24 Sep 2023 12:24:34 +0000

Thank you for this. It's given us a lot of great ideas to implement for our son, as we have been trying to reach him about money and that everything costs money. He realized yesterday we paid money for our house (and I explained we continue to pay every month) and he goes "oh, that's why you and dad work" Curious if you've given any thought to friend/classmate birthday parties? We're about to hit that stage, and I'm thinking he can choose a toy from my little stash or if he wants to buy something else it'll need to come from his money? Or we set a budget for him to choose even though we would pay for the gift?

By: Danielle

Danielle — Sun, 24 Sep 2023 12:19:10 +0000

In reply to Jaclyn. My son is 4 and wants to look at toys a lot. I taught him about making a list. Whenever he's interested in something, we add it to his own Amazon list. He'll ask to review the list every so often, so we'll talk about how if there's something he no longer wants we can remove it from the list. He also knows that the list is shared with his grandparents and that's what we will use for gift-giving occasions. I've been able to find things free or at yard sales that were on his list!

By: Robin

Robin — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 14:38:49 +0000

In reply to MrBojangles. This can also be a lesson about the cost of financing stuff. My husband was briefly a manager (he hated it) for one of the "rent to own" store chains; the name rhymes with "Sharon's". People spent the last of their paychecks so they could make payments on overpriced furniture sets and huge TVs with speakers.

By: Robin

Robin — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 14:23:21 +0000

I am not a parent, but I think a lot of this is great. So many of us entered adulthood without much financial knowledge and advice.

By: Tracy

Tracy — Thu, 21 Sep 2023 13:00:46 +0000

We started our now ten year old with an allowance at the age of four. It is half his age (so currently five dollars) and I have always given it to him in quarters to make it easier for him to divvy up into his piggy bank with four sections: save, spend, invest, and donate. He is required to put at least 10% into save, invest, and donate and the remaining 70% can be put into any section. Some weeks he evenly divides it. Other weeks he puts all remaining into spend. His money, his choice.
Whenever he builds up enough in saving, it goes into his bank account at the local credit union which pays more in interest than the banks around here. We keep it local so that he learns about depositing and making withdrawals when we are about to go on vacation. (We treat this one as a save to spend account.) His donation amount can be used for any non-profit (church, state park, museum, etc.) because we are teaching him that some of the best things require help from us to remain available. When his invest reached $100 we put it into a CD at the credit union and once he reached 10 years old we talked about the stock market using Jillian Johnsrud’s Halloween candy example. He loves owning bits of all the companies!
So far his money management skills are about where we’d expect at his age. Yes, we let him go into debt in a similar example. Yes, he sometimes doesn’t want to do his chores for pay. Yes, we’ve let him buy the junk that breaks after one use and he is sad. But in every instance he is learning a lesson that is a lot cheaper to learn at home than it is to learn as an adult. And that is why we do it.
Thank you for sharing your methods. It always helps to read how other parents are doing it.