Lessons at the Garage Sale

This weekend, Parent Bloggers is asking parents how we teach our kids about money.

We haven’t started giving the kids an allowance yet, but they do receive money as gifts.  Ben and Ethan each have a piggy bank, but we’ve also gotten them each wallets.  This summer we decided to start teaching them about money when we hit the garage sales.

What I like about the garage sale shopping is that the purchases are small.  When we’re driving around it is easy to spot which sales have toys and they usually have a box with a mix of different cars or action figures for 25 or 50 cents.  We help the boys figure out how much money they have and leave it to them to decide which toys they want.  They have been very good about asking how many they can get and there is rarely any whining.

The surprising part of this to us is how the boys are such discerning shoppers.  Our fear was that they would spend all their money at the first sale and buy a ton of toys.  Instead they are very picky.  I think shopping for unpackaged toys makes a big difference.  They pick through the toys, try them out, and are very good about limiting how many they buy.  Of course, we’re keeping our eye out for bargains and occasionally guide them towards one toy over another, but in the end we let them make the purchasing decision.  When they’re done picking out their toys, they pay for them themselves and we’ll help them count out their quarters.

In the coming years we’ll work on other aspects of finance, probably using the Spend, Save, Give strategy mentioned on Jumping Monkeys.  This will teach them that there is more to allowance than buying new toys.  Today Ethan was upset that Heather bought the present for his friends birthday.  Splitting up an allowance with SSG would give him the money to use to buy the birthday presents himself.

To learn more about how to handle your finances, be sure to check out the  Moneywise ELearning tool from Capital One.