A Great Way To Teach Kids About Money (...That Helps Your Family Budget Together)

I recently wrote about Georgia's attempt at using a finance curriculum to heal Georgia's financial woes.

It got me thinking about the approach of a homeschooling friend and her family's approach to teaching her daughters to handle money.

What she did was split a good deal of the family's income money between her children.

To do this, she first had to determine her family's budget and decide how much money it took to support each child. She gave her children all of the money that it took to support them.

From that money, she then had her children pay her back their share of the mortgage payment, transportation, and of the joint food budget. She also had them pay for their medical needs, and other costs that could not be avoided. If there was a family emergency, then the kids would need to make sacrifices and chip in to deal with it.

With the money that the girls have left, they can purchase clothing, pay for entertainment, toys, games, outings, and personal snacks.

The result of this ongoing experiment:

These girls are all quite thin, choosing to keep more money in their pocket than to spend it on excessive junk food.

They are shrewd shoppers and businesswomen, as they purchase many items that they find on sale and sell them to others.

They do not have cable or satellite TV, as they have opted to rent movies from the library.

They do not have a lot of expensive toys, as they opt to wait for holiday presents or play outside (...that's when they aren't working on making more money).

These girls are also quite happy to do without many of the luxuries that other kids would 'die' for.

Maybe one day I will get the courage to split my family's income with my kids and see what happens. I could probably earn it all back while charging them for maid services.