Haven't read the replies, so I apologize if this was touched on. I read a great book about money and children and it framed my approach on this.
We have three jars: save, donate, spend. She is *required* each week to put $1 in save and $1 in donate, but the other $4 she can choose (we do $6- half-ish her age). If she puts an extra $1 (or more) in save, so we match it $1 for $1. So, she sees this way to save more quickly, BUT her save jar has requirements attached to it. There has to be something specific she is saving for- doll, guitar, game whatever. She can only spend that money when she reaches the amount she needs. Caveat- we do let her change what she is saving for if we feel like it's not just to buy stuff and her tastes have changed.
She is not allowed to take money out of save and use it for spend, but she can go the other way.
This really helped her with how to frame purchases and she rarely buys junk. Of course she'll still get slime or a lollipop with her money because we cannot say "no" to purchases made with her spend money, but it's not that often. We also don't go to the store weekly (or even monthly honestly) so that helps.
She also sees that even if she has $5 in her spend jar, that doesn't get much, so she often saves it for a bigger purchase (sometimes still junk, obviously) but it's fewer items in general.
Post by goldengirlz on Jun 19, 2022 17:59:31 GMT -5
This is why we don’t do an allowance. DD gets plenty of money from random occasions all year long, so we’re focused now on teaching the value of saving what she has.
I control the purse strings on the account but all she asks for these days are Pokémon cards and I’m not spending any more money on those.