[notmadeofmoney]

Hi,

I am new to this board (just joined today) and this thread caught my eye. My husband and I have 3 kids and we are working on teaching them about money. In fact, I just wrote about this very thing on my blog the other day. Anyway, in our house when a child turns 3 then they begin to receive an allowance. It is a very small amount and is really done so that we may model money management to the kids. Dad is the "paymaster". The kids each have 3 jars. One jar is labeled "tithing", one jar is labeled "saving", and the last jar is labeled "spending." When it is allowance day, Dad takes each child separately, pays them their allowance, and then helps the child to divide up the allowance into the correct amounts for each category of tithing, saving, and spending. The kids really enjoy this and like dividing up the money and putting it into the correct jars. Another benefit we have found is that it has enabled us to see our children's natural "money personalities" at an early age. Our oldest loves to spend, our middle child prefers to save everything, and the youngest just wants to save up until she can buy the "big stuff", you know, like a cabbage patch doll.