For years, we have always used cash envelopes for most purchases. It helped me stick to my budget, but I slowly moved on to using my debit card to track everything through YouneeDabudget.
Until the other day I realized it wasn’t working as well as I thought it was, and it worked.
Please tell me about that…
You know, we’ve been teaching Kierstyn (4 years old) about money. We’ve been talking about how the way to pay for things is to make money. We have given her the opportunity to do extra chores to make money for what she wants to buy.
Well, there was something she wanted to buy and she didn’t have enough money for it. I told her I could do a little more chore to make her money, and she replied, “Or you can just use your card to buy it.”
I realized there is no concept that my debit card is linked to a bank account that has actual cash.I tried to explain this to her, but I could tell that it didn’t make much sense.
She believes that swiping over a plastic card means that you don’t have to spend money to pay anything. And plastic cards are access to the unlimited ability to purchase things.
I probably use real cash to watch me like my older kids did, so do you think it’s time to go back to the cash envelope for a while? Or at the very least, make sure you withdraw cash for regular use and have these conversations with your younger children about how cash, banks, debit cards and money work.
This story from Kierstyn is why it is so important to have conversations with children about money as soon as possible. It also reminds us that the way we interact with money affects our children and how we see and manage our future money.
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Source: Money Saving Mom® – moneysavingmom.com
