Show What Life Is Like Managing The B Budget And nd Six Kids On A Shopping Spree i A by Lorna Loma Blain ii t Its It's a challenge for any mother to take her children shopping If the little darlings arent aren't running helter up and down the aisles or playing hide-and- hide seek in the clothes racks then they're trying to sneak extra boxes of the newest sugar-coated sugar cereal into the shopping cart without mom noticing The hardest part though is when they start asking for things I recently went shopping with my six kids It started the minute we walked into the store Momma ease e would you buy me an ice cream cone Oh Oh couldn't I have just one candy bar Gee mom look at this neat toy If you l let t me get it I promise I wont won't ask for another thing The The re replies lies to all ll their demands and pleas were met with No I cant can't afford it I can cant can't t afford afford it I can cannot cannot cannot not afford it By the end of the shopping trip I had to drag the children from the store screaming Gosh mom why couldn't we buy anything Youre You're so mean You never buy us anything When we got home I went directly to my room and shut the door I sat there ere for a long time thinking and feeling sorry for myself I wondered how a single mother was suppose to support six children on a month I needed a system for managing money Months ago a friend had given me a book on How to Manage Your Financial Destiny I decided the time had come to read it After reading a section entitled Teaching Children to Manage Money I realized that an allowance was the single most valuable tool for teaching children how to manage money Well it sounded logical and wonderful but how was I suppose to do it I could barely afford to keep them all in shoes I certainly couldn't afford to give them an allowance Or could I An idea flashed into my head I got out my calculator My fingers flew into a frenzy of tabulations I started calculating how much I was spending per year on each child for clothing shoes recreational activities and miscellaneous expenditures such as school pictures school supplies candy bars and soda pop I discovered that I was spending approximately 20 per child each month Three hours after I had barricaded myself in my room I emerged with what turned out outto outto outto to be the best idea Ive I've ever had The children were prepared to receive their usual lecture on how they were never going shopping with me again but were surprised to hear me say I think its it's time I taught you kids how to manage money Im I'm going to give each of you 20 a month for your allowance Its It's your part of the family's money You dont don't have to do anything to earn it Its It's not pay for doing dishes keeping your room clean or getting good grades in school These are things you should do as part of the family and because you love me You may spend your money on anything you want to but you have to keep track of what you spend in this book I held up a ledger I have a page in here for each of you Every month I will record your allowance in the first column and then Ill I'll put your money in this box I showed them a plastic box which was divided into six compartments which were each labeled with a childs child's name This is our family bank I explained With this money you'll be responsible for buying all your own clothes shoes coats underwear school supplies batteries for toys or whatever You can spend it all on candy bars soda pop or orr going sk skating ting with witt your friends Just remember er if anew pair of ot shoes or something like that if you dont don't have the money then you'll have to go without If you decide to save your money in the family bank then Ill I'll pay you 10 percent interest at the end of every month The older kids were especially excited with the idea For the next few days they plotted how they would spend their money My year ten-year-old decided that she was going to buy a new pair of snow boots When she got to the store she found a beautiful pair of patent-leather patent dress shoes that she absolutely had to have I reminded her that she already had two good pairs of dress shoes at home and she n needed eded the boots more She could not be swayed It was hard to just stand there and not interfere but if this was going to be a learning experience I had to be willing to let her make a few mistakes One snowy day several weeks later she discovered holes in her boots When she approached me about buying new ones I reminded her that she had already spent all her money on the dress shoes There she was faced with three feet of snow and nothing to keep her feet warm but a pair of holey boots and three pairs of dress shoes in her closet She had to suffer with wearing her old boots for two weeks until she got her next months month's allowance It was hard not to give in and buy her a pair of boots but I Not only did she learn a valuable lesson but the other children learned from her mistake too I was surprised at how quickly my kids learned to be frugal and careful shoppers They learned that if they could be patient comparison shop watch for clearance sales and blue light specials that they were able to make their money stretch farther One month my oldest daughter bought a pair of pants that she had been wanting and paid only for them during a blue light special The next week during a clearance sale she bought a pair of needed much-needed sneakers for She had less than when she spotted the fur coat she had wanted all winter It had normally sol sold for 60 and had now been marked down to 2495 Her solution was to put it in lay-away lay for down and per month It was June before the the coat was paid for but she didn't have to worry about a coat for the next winter She learned a valuable lesson in being responsible for budgeting her money so that she could be sure to make her lay-away lay payments each month Each ach of the children right down downto to the year old have learned the basic concepts of how hov to man manage ge their thir money They have made mistakes along the way yay and sometimes they didn't didn t make the best choices but the important thing I is that they have learned the value of money and it didn't cost me anymore to give them an allowance than I was already spending The best part of it all is that now I can take them sho shopping ping with me and leave my bottle of aspirin at home It wasn't until quite late in life that I discovered how easy to say sav I dont don't know know Somerset Maugham I Question of the Month I Yesterdays Yesterday's mistakes mistake belong to yesterday yesterday yes yes- so why ruin today worrying about the possible mistakes of tomorrow tomorrow tomor tomor- row |