Welp, we've got another half-clothes-buyer in the house.
(In our family, kids have to start paying half on their clothes when they turn twelve.)
My Dad reminded me this summer that growing up we started buying ALL of our clothes (not just a wimpy half :) when we turned EIGHT. But Dave and I are not quite as on-the-ball as my parents and we aren't afraid to admit that.
Because kids have to start paying for a bunch of their own stuff at 12 (or eight in my family growing up's case) we try to help them earn enough money so they can learn to budget, save, pay tithing to our church, and all that jazz as young as possible. Some people don't agree with paying kids to do chores (something should just be part of pulling your own load in a family) and we didn't either when our kids were young. But then we realized how awesome it is to funnel the money we would be paying for clothes into their family bank account through them earning it so that they can take ownership and learn to better handle money.
We've been through a whole bunch of "fails" on this. Sometimes when I write on this blog I'm sure it probably comes across that we've got everything together, easy-peasy. Like we snapped our fingers and suddenly everything fell into place. But it's taken work and re-work, and re-working again to get to where we are.
And it will probably be re-worked again.
Two of our kids are spenders no matter what the heck we try, they cannot seem to keep money in their bank accounts to save their souls.
I detailed our whole money system that we have finally settled on (after 592 other tries through the years) back HERE, and we love it.
Still. After over four years.
Just because we love it doesn't mean it always runs like clockwork. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and say that maybe a quarter of the weeks are a bust on this little system of ours (I wonder if our system was like that growing up too? Was my Dad really the "banker" every single week of our growing up existence? As awesome as he was/is, I still venture to say I think not.) After breaks it's hard to get the ball rolling. Even a three-day weekend throws a hanger in the works.
But guess what? Just because a system goes to the wayside every so often that doesn't mean you can't cinch up your bootstraps and get on the ball again. (Man alive I'm grateful for Dave my structure/schedule guy because without him maybe all our best-laid efforts we've put all our blood and sweat and tears into would just be fading memories by now.)
This year we're off to the races and those job charts have been overflowing with love and attention.
We have re-worked our zones now that we only have three at home, we have followed through with some consequences when things don't get done (babysitting duty or just plain staying home on the weekend if you don't get them all filled out), and we are going like gangbusters around here.
We have re-worked our zones now that we only have three at home, we have followed through with some consequences when things don't get done (babysitting duty or just plain staying home on the weekend if you don't get them all filled out), and we are going like gangbusters around here.
Things are hopping once again.
But really, I digress a lot on here. What this post is about is really back in the late spring/early summer when Claire needed some new clothes.
She's lucky because she gets hand-me-downs and has also fit in the same size for what seems like ages.
But it was time to get a few things.
Although she turned twelve in January, she hadn't really needed anything new. So as we made our way to the mall to get a little shopping in I told her I was sure glad she had earned some money through all her babysitting. It would come in handy since she had graduated to paying for half of her clothes.
Her face dropped a little. Clearly, paying for any part of clothes was not what she had expected to do with that hard-earned cash that Saturday morning.
But I was in awe once again, as I have been with each of my three older children, how our shopping changed that day. Claire at first showed me a whole slew of "cute" things. And it was magical how she weeded them out herself, asking about prices, excitement abounding when she realized something was on sale, etc.
She made some good choices that day, and was pretty pleased as punch with herself for handing over her cash to buy some things.
She's lucky because she gets hand-me-downs and has also fit in the same size for what seems like ages.
But it was time to get a few things.
Although she turned twelve in January, she hadn't really needed anything new. So as we made our way to the mall to get a little shopping in I told her I was sure glad she had earned some money through all her babysitting. It would come in handy since she had graduated to paying for half of her clothes.
Her face dropped a little. Clearly, paying for any part of clothes was not what she had expected to do with that hard-earned cash that Saturday morning.
But I was in awe once again, as I have been with each of my three older children, how our shopping changed that day. Claire at first showed me a whole slew of "cute" things. And it was magical how she weeded them out herself, asking about prices, excitement abounding when she realized something was on sale, etc.
She made some good choices that day, and was pretty pleased as punch with herself for handing over her cash to buy some things.
Dave and I (along with our kids) are on a continual learning curve trying to figure out how to facilitate it in better ways. There are all kinds of twists and turns in this parenting gig. And we sure fail at a whole slew of things.
Sure, this girl (and all our kids) will/do mess up with their spending. And we'll forget "pay day" now and again. And it won't work like clockwork.
But right there on that little shopping trip I realized that it really is worth all the work and hoopla on this continual learning curve of trying to help kids manage money, figure out their 10-20-70 amounts, how to earn, how to give, and yes, how to spend wisely.
Even with all the fails and heartache, those golden moments make it all worthwhile!