Husband and I are working on teaching our kids about money.
We started giving them allowances last year. I took them to the bank to open savings accounts and make their first deposits. I wanted them to have a concrete memory of the milestone and a sense that their money lives in a physical place.
Since they don’t have many opportunities to spend it and also don’t want a lot of stuff, the money accumulates. We don’t even use cash anymore; we just transfer their allowance over from our checking account. The whole process is digital, too invisible for the kids to appreciate, so I decided to give them a more tangible experience with spending and saving: Money Camp.
I gave each kid $60 in Monopoly money to start. The kids have to pay for everything for a week: rent, meals, video games, even daycare for their stuffed animals. They earn money by doing chores and selling services. Each night, they plan the next day’s expenses and income in their “Budget Books.” They can also borrow from the bank or deposit money at 20% interest.
At the beginning of each Budget Book I left a space for each kid to write their goals for the week. 10yo wrote “lots of money left over!!” 7yo left it blank.
7yo was initially hesitant about Money Camp because he was scared of “running out of money.” I assured him I wouldn’t turn him out on the street if he didn’t make his rent. By Wednesday, he was shaking me awake in the morning because he couldn’t earn anything while I was asleep.
The required expense the kids protested the most was “stuffy daycare.” We explained that when you’re a parent, childcare is a huge chunk of monthly expenses. 10yo declared hotly “well, I don’t want kids anyway” then added that we better send the stuffies home with “crafts or something” to make it “worth it.” Once Teacher Husband started sending photos of their stuffies having a blast during the day, they decided it was money well spent. You can’t put a price on your stuffies’ happiness.
Board game time @ Stuffy Daycare
The kids are quite creative about making money. It’s fun to see what they sell — it’s driven mainly by their interests and what craft kits they have at their disposal. A non-exhaustive list of stuff I’ve bought: paintings, origami creations, paper airplanes, paper airplane classes, read-alouds, massages, a tetherball tournament with commercials, concessions at the tetherball tournament, wallets. And that was just on Tuesday and Wednesday.
We’ve also had many conversations like this:
Me: “Can we negotiate the prices?”
10yo: “You can only negotiate UP!”
Art gallery: everything’s for sale
Both kids, and 10yo in particular, have learned new skills this week, including doing laundry and making lunch. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how generous they can be — 7yo is stingy spending on himself but gave his friend $5 as a “tip” for a great origami class. The kids also teamed up to money-make with their BFF. The three of them split whatever money they make equally, even when the effort expended isn’t equal. I like the team-first mentality.
The kids earn more than they spend each day, unsurprising because they refuse to pay for things like entertainment. While I appreciate their ascetic ways, I’ve told them that life isn’t only about making money, you need to enjoy it too. They also haven’t taken full advantage of putting their excess money to work earning interest; they seem to like keeping the money in their wallets.
Initially Husband was not a fan of transactionalizing so much, and we’ve tried to be clear that you can’t put a price on everything. Once this week is over, it’s back to relying on internal motivation. I do think though that the prices have helped the kids understand trade-offs in a concrete way. It’s also showed them that some things they took for granted — like adults driving them to playdates— have value, because we charge for them.
I’ll do Money Camp again, next time adding topics like investing and giving. This week has shown me that the kids have the foundations of good money management down: they’re resourceful, work hard and don’t overspend. Nice job, kids.
how much did you earn for this blog post?
“Desserts: $5 (max, one per day)”... if only such controls existed in the real world so that I couldn’t buy those multiple pints of Halo Top.