by Kodie Axelsen
Shout out to all the mums out there for Mother’s Day! If no one has told you recently, you are doing an awesome job out there in this world! It’s a big job being a mum!
As mums our worlds revolve around our kids. Teaching them life skills and how to go about living in this world is our top priority. We need to teach our children an understanding of money and where it comes from.
These days kids think it comes from the money tree and who can blame them.
They see us swipe plastic or our phones and then “BEEP,” the money tree delivers. They need to be taught to respect money and how to use it. I think it is a shame that cash is being used less. It adds a tangible feeling to hold it in your hand and physically give it to someone in exchange for goods.
You feel it come in and you feel it go. I remember as a kid I used to work as the dish pig for my mum at her cafe and I’d get $50 for working a Sunday.
Every two weeks I’d swap my two fifties for a green note. Safe to say every second week I was even more pumped to get the next one. I have watched my own kids in the toy section deciding whether what they wanted was worth the money it cost to buy it and if they would still be happy with how much they had left.
It absolutely lit me up to watch that scenario play out without my input at all. They made a conscious decision that they weren’t willing to purchase this toy as it was too expensive for their liking. They didn’t see the value in it, so they weren’t prepared to part with their hard-earned money. Funny how different that feeling is when you’re spending your own money and not mum and dads.
In our house our kids receive pocket money for their daily jobs, and they must contribute towards the daily running’s of our house. They all now have a Spriggy bank card that they get paid their pocket money into every week.
They have a savings account and a spending’s account. They can even start additional accounts for specific goals. I also have the ability to set tasks for them to do for payment. A foot massage is a common one in our house! I see all the mums out there nodding their approval to this one! $5 foot massages are the bomb! We don’t swap jobs. They have their job that they’re responsible for. I find this teaches them resilience for those days they want to complain that their sibling has an easier job, or they want to swap. Too bad so sad. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
They have their responsibility towards contributing to our household and they receive a wage for their service that they can spend on what they want. I have found that their money management changes with their personality.
I have one child that can save till the cows come home and one that spends all her money on tuckshop. When she wants to buy a large item, I ask how much money do you have? I put the responsibility for not being able to afford that item back onto her. The fact that she can’t afford it has nothing to do with me. I find this is a great lesson early in life that will hold them in good stead for when they become adults and have no one to back them but themselves.
It becomes even more interesting when they start to negotiate a way to purchase what they want. Again, great skills for them to acquire for later in life. Testing boundaries of what they can achieve and finding ways to make things happen if they aren’t yet in a position to do it themselves.
These small lessons in life can become huge contributors to their future success as money does impact your quality of life and the options available to you. It is a cold-hard fact that we require money to survive in this world. To not educate our children on the value of money is in some way letting their future selves down. I want to raise independent and responsible humans. I want to arm them with the knowledge and the experience of what it feels like to earn your own money, manage and spend it responsibly.
Arming them with the power of knowledge gives them the confidence to go out into the world guns blazing. If they want a car, a house, a holiday, they have the power to go out and make it happen and the confidence to follow through because that have been there and done that before. No matter how big or small the fundamentals are the same. I wish all of the mums out there an amazing day and I hope you get spoilt rotten. If myself or my team can help you or your child manage their money in a better way, please do not hesitate at all to contact me. I would love nothing more than to help give you or your child some guidance around living an abundant life.