How to teach young children healthy money habits?

[mommahhh]

I am at a loss. My 6 year old just wants "things". She wants to collect, keep, have. Not sure if it is the age or just her personality. She seems to be taking after my mother.

She has a small collection of good quality toys (wooden block, stamps, etc) plus some other things she loves (stuffed animals, doll carriage, dolls) and lots of crafty things plus tons of books. This is nothing compared to the ridiculous amount of plastic crap some of her classmates own. But she always wants more things. She talks constantly about what she wants to buy. Always asking me if I'll buy this or that. She keeps a running list of things she wants for her birthday and Christmas. She's also such a perfectionist. If any of her toys gets dented/a mark/anything, she says she doesn't want it anymore. She doesn't want to borrow books or movies from the library. She wants to OWN everything so she wants to buy books and movies from Amazon. Of course we don't give her this option often (we do build up her home library), but it is what she wants. She won't even go to the library anymore! And if I want to go to a store to pick something up, she's never ever happy with just looking. She has to have SOMETHING OMG or she gets so upset. It isn't even really about the item...she just wants to leave the store with something. It seems odd to me, but then again I'm the polar opposite. I love the site www.stopbuyingcrap.com. Where did this little girl come from??

I've tried giving her a little allowance and helping her understand the concept of saving. Not working out so well. She tells me to just go to the bank when she wants something (again, of course I DON'T, but these are the gems she comes out with). I read the book "It's Not What You've Got" to her, but she obviously doesn't get it. I am so sick of hearing about the "things" she wants to buy (and we don't even have television, so there are no commercials!). I try not to get angry...afterall she's only 6, but it still makes me so annoyed that she's so materialistic and hell-bent on acquiring "things" this young in life. What is she going to be like at 13?? I need to get a handle on this now.

Any ideas?

[mamamelia]

no advice, but i couldn't help but laugh at this:

She tells me to just go to the bank when she wants something (again, of course I DON'T, but these are the gems she comes out with).

my 4yo dd tells me "its ok mum, really, just tell daddy to go to the machine and get some money and then we can go to the shops and buy it".

----

on another note, i was like your daughter at a young age too - a bit of a perfectionist especially with the dent/mark/anything category. unfortunately not much has changed at 27yo but the plus side is i take care of my stuff really well so that it is not ruined as easily. and i buy right the first time too, so i don't need to buy again. hard to believe, but good things can come out of perfectionism.

[mommahhh]

haha, thanks. I swear, when I'm buying something for her I look it over SO CLOSELY because anything (a tiny scratch, a piece of price sticker that won't come off, the tiniest mark) will be noticed and cause issues. I recently looked over a little metal lunchbox to hold her crayons. I inspected it and it was perfect. She won't touch it. Why? Because the metal handle makes her hands smell weird.

Oh, and she saved to buy a puzzle of a group of fairies. She's never even opened it. Why? Because she noticed (once she got it home) that one of the princesses looks "ugly" because there is a slight mark on the puzzle right over her nose.

[Natsuki]

Does she watch a lot of TV or other media that would expose her to the idea of 'needing more' or reinforce it regularly?

[mommahhh]

Originally Posted by Natsuki

Does she watch a lot of TV or other media that would expose her to the idea of 'needing more' or reinforce it regularly?

No, we don't watch t.v. It just comes naturally to her.

[Cheshire]

Great question! Here is what we're doing with our 4yo (we started this when he was about 3.5):

He has three jars - a spending jar (70%), a savings jar (20%) and a giving jar (10%). Any money he gets as a gift or earns he splits into his jars.

He doesn't get an allowance but he does have the opportunity to earn money when he wants. Some of the ways he earns money - vacuuming out our cars (he mostly just plays with the vacuum and lets it suck up leaves, tissues, etc.), helping his dad air up the tires on our cars, sweeping the front porch, etc. Regular chores don't earn money - those are just something every family member does to help out our family. I wish someone would pay me to do the laundry.

We've explained that we have jars (called accounts) at the bank where we split our money so that we'll have enough to cover the house payment, enough to buy food, etc. And, when we run out of money in our jar for that month we don't have anymore we can just magically pull out. This explanation has worked really well to help him understand that the money in the bank is limited. And, the reason we have money in the bank is because we've earned it.

Now, when we go to the store and he's just itching to buy something he takes his money. If he finds something he likes and has enough to cover it he'll buy it. If not, even though we explain he can save a little more to have enough the next time to buy it, he'll still walk around until he's found something he can afford. This is tough to watch because usually he just buys something really crappy, but it is his money and he has to learn so we let him. The last couple of times he has actually been able to decide to wait! Yeah! Progress. Also, watching his heart break over not having enough money is hard and we get the urge to jump in and "loan" him the money but then we are just setting him up to depend on credit. So, we'll comfort him, sympathize with his pain and by the time we've walked to another part of the store he is over it.

By giving him the opportunity to earn his own money we've noticed that he doesn't pitch a fit if we won't buy him something. If he asks for a toy I'll tell him I don't have any funds in my toy jar and I'll ask him if he's going to pay for it. Usually, he'll just say "no" and move onto something else. Or, I'll tell him we aren't buying toys today and if he doesn't want to buy it with his money he can put it on his santa list.

This also works with fast food. If he wants McDonalds and we don't have plans to eat out I'll tell him we don't have the money in our eating out jar and if he'd like to pay for it he can have McDonalds. He doesn't like to spend his money on food so he's happy with eating in.

He also said the other day that he didn't want us buying any Halloween stuff because he wanted us to save our money for Christmas. I guess after a year of this it is finally sinking in!

Sounds like your 6yo is normal for wanting stuff. You'll have to help her learn how to handle money. If you decide to set up a similar jar system just know that it takes time and it is an adjustment.

Don't worry about her obsessing over things. Because she is a perfectionist keep on teaching her how to spot quality and encourage her to keep her lists of things that she wants. Then, when she has her own money to spend and she is responsible for the things she buys she learn to be more picky.

Oh, the other great thing DS has learned through this is that his parents are not ATM's - we are not a source of money that he can tap whenever he wants something.

We've started to talk about wants versus needs. He wants a toy but he needs a new pair of shoes to keep his feet warm this winter because of his growth spurt. Right now we cover the needs for him - as he gets older we'll start giving him some of the funds we use to cover his needs and let him handle that money as well. For example, if he spends all of his clothing budget on one pair of jeans he's going to have to wash that pair of jeans a lot until he either earns money to buy more or until he's outgrown them and we would have purchased him another pair because he needs it.

Kids don't learn about money from osmosis. They have to be shown how it works and they have to make mistakes with money to also learn how it works. Letting them make the mistakes is the hardest part but I'd rather DS make the mistakes now when he's young instead of when he's a grown man and the mistakes aren't so easy to fix.

[lightheart]

Our older son, age 6 had a book fair at school earlier this year.

I asked him did he want me to go with him to pick out something or did he want me to send money and he could go with his class and pick something out by himself. He said for me and little brother to come.

Well, the next day he took his school money (think he had about .50 cents with him) and went with his class.

He learned a huge lesson in economics that day! He came home so very sad and upset that he couldn't afford to buy anything.

Apparently he picked out a couple of books and took them up and the girls (5th graders helping with the fair) told him that he didn't have enough money. They showed him that he could get a bookmark and that was it.

After the intial meltdown cry that I didn't send money and me reminding him that he told me not to send money and that I was going to go with him to pick something, he said to me " Did you know that books so so expensive?!"

Since experiencing 1st hand that things cost money and sometimes you just don't have enough money to get something you want he is starting to look at prices and asking along the lines of do I have enough? or how much more do I need? rather than just I want.

[Ruthiegirl]

Part of it is that age. My dd just turned 7 and she went on a feakish "buy, buy, buy" binge last year. It really bugged me until I talked with a friend about it and she reminded me how magical money must be to a child who has a very different perspective on money than her parents do.

ATMs must seem like magic, dispensing cash that can buy wonderful things at stores. Of course, my dd had no idea of how hard her dad works for our family to have money, how hard I work to balance a tight budget, how expensive gas is, how expensive heat will be this winter, how stressed I am about putting away savings and expanding our pantry.

She just saw the beauty of cash and the wonderful thangs that can be bought. And all of the wonderful things that other kids owned.

A big help was getting her her own wallet. She gets a little cash from the grandparents for her birthday, a couple of dollars from the tooth fairy - she keeps this in her wallet and can buy small things that she wants.

It took time, buut I have noticed a huge change in her behavior. She has seen what things cost. Has bought things that fell apart quickly and suffered a bit of buyer's remorse. We have talked to her a lot during the past year about money -- what we save, waht we spend, how we prioritize our spending.

I think 6 is a great age to start having lots of talks about money and spending choices. My kids respond really well to concrete terms and money can be very concrete -- you either have it or you don't!

Give her time. She'll come around.

[texmati]

I used to be like that at that age... I'm as frugal as they come, both now and when I was growing up.

To me... I think wanting a 'set' of something, and wanting something to be perfect was more of an indication of wanting some stability and routine in my life. And I didn't have a tumultuous childhood, my home was just disorganized.

I'm sure that she'll be fine s