Dave Ramsey....kid style

Anna decided that it was time that she start receiving an allowance. Glad she is in charge of the finances around here!! We talked some with her about what it means to earn an allowance and that there would be work involved. We decided a great way for her to learn about money and how to properly earn, save and spend her money was through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace Junior book/CD. Gary and I have both learned the ways of Dave Ramsey and agree with the taught principles. You live like no one else he says so one day you can live like no one else. Of course that is not so easy for a 7 year old to understand. The cute book and CD took the principles and put them into kid friendly scenarios.

Anna has amassed quite a few dollars recently and so we did agree that this was the perfect time to really start teaching Anna smart ways to use her money. We are using the "envelope" system with her that Dave teaches. One envelope for spending money, one envelope for saving money and one envelope for giving away to a special cause. We immediately calculating what 10% of her money was and put that in the giving envelope. She decided she wanted to save for a Nintendo DS game. Even though she had enough money to buy it we thought it would be good to earn something she wanted. We let her put half of the cost of the game in the save envelope from what she had already and then let her earn the rest through her allowance or "commission" as they teach in Financial Peace. We made a list of chores or tasks that she needed to do each week and what those were worth. We also listed things that were expected of her that she did not earn anything for. We then finally listed out things that she would get a "fine" for that would take away from what she had learned.

June 1st was the first week we started the allowance. She did fairly well. That week I was home with the girls and so there were more opportunities to earn a fine. She earned 70% of her allowance that week. The next week she earned 90% and this past week she earned 100%. She now has enough to buy the game if we buy it online. It will take one more week to earn it if she wants to go into a store and purchase it. We'll see what she chooses.

I'm proud of her for wanting to earn some money. Between her Art Camp and VBS at church last week she has given away all her "give" money. She was so excited to take her own money for the offering. We'll see how she continues to do....so far, so good!