Family and Finances: Episode 6, Part 1

And today we're going to talk about teaching our children financial lessons, what it means to be a biblical steward, something that really I would have to defer to you so much of it on because I felt like you were the expert on that topic. You took so much time and effort to help them in that area. At the same time, it was important to both of us because we felt there was a void in our upbringing not to condemn our parents, but we just didn't really, maybe they did, we just didn't get it. We didn't go into our adulthood really knowing how to do money well. So we became pretty intentional about this topic. Well, I think one thing I tried to emphasize the most was learning to do without, you know. And that started early, you know, when we'd go to the grocery store or any kind of store and the children wanted something, if they begged, I never gave in, just never, begging, no way. Yeah, you didn't. We get asked a lot, particularly about what's age appropriate. And so people listening have children at different stages and they may have them even adult children or grandchildren they're trying to help right now. It's not uncommon for us to get a call from somebody whose, you know, children are just financial disasters and they don't know how to undo that. There's a great verse, I think it's 3 John 1, 4, that says, I have no greater joy than to see my children walking in the truth. And I totally agree with that. That's the heart's desire of every Christian parent. But I would add an addendum that you have no greater relief than to see them pay in their own way. And we always had a goal that one day our children would be able to take care of it themselves. And it's a great goal because once they're out of the home and they're no longer dependent on mom and dad, there's a lot of freedom in that. And when we're asked what age is appropriate, well, children are observing from early on.

You know, they're watching what you're doing, how you're paying, you know, credit cards. Most children probably don't even realize what money is because they just see their parents use their credit cards. But the earlier the better. I think the first lesson you established in our home was that no means no. I tried to, yeah. Tried to delay gratification and reward their waiting. Well, delayed gratification is the key to managing money. And we wanted our children to know what that meant and we may have overdone it. You know, we taught them that when we said no, it meant no. There was no tree growing out in our backyard with money on it. And that there was a limitation to what we would be able to do. And that they were going to have to learn how to do money as well along this journey that we had been on. We were, we didn't want them to repeat our mistakes. No, we didn't. And I really tried to emphasize being content with what they had. We had, especially later in our marriage, you had been exposed to a lot of poverty overseas. And it was difficult to see American children with so much stuff. You know, so I wanted ours to learn to just be content with what they had. Well, we also emphasized allocation, which we had not really been taught. That everything that came to their hands would have to be allocated into the form of a spending plan or what we'd call a budget. Talk a little bit about the system you set up for them. You know, I, I wanted them to learn to give first. So we came up with this binder idea. And these, is that what you want me to talk about, the binder? And these little pockets, you know, the little zip pockets that you can buy at the store that kids put pencils in or, you know, little supplies for school. So I bought three of those, put them in a binder for each child and labeled them give,

save, and spend. And I told them they needed to learn to give 10%. So anytime they received any money, they put 10% of it in the giving pocket, 50% in their saving pocket, and 40% for spending. And they did that for a long time. Well, and the rule was, it didn't matter if grandma gave them $100 for their birthday, it had to be allocated and so nobody got to go out and just blow money and if they worked they had to allocate if we had any kind of allowance all of those things were to teach them that one day they would have to allocate their funds into a budget themselves and so they needed to learn the discipline of doing that. Well speaking of allowance early on with our oldest boys we just gave them an allowance never was a lot but we just gave it whether they you know they didn't have to earn it. Later with our younger two we expected them to work. Well our rule was there are things that are common to having a home that somebody has to do and they have to contribute so we weren't going to pay them for things that just were necessary like making their bed. No. You need to make your bed whether it's my house or your house that's just a part of living and so that you didn't get an allowance for that you didn't get an allowance for taking out the trash you didn't get an allowance for helping with the dishes. Now I do think remember if I recall correctly that we started giving them a clothing allowance at 16. Well what we did is we said there are certain things that if you will do and contribute that are beyond the norm then we'll pay you for that and so you know I've had yard work built in with these four boys for all these years. They got paid for helping with the yard. They get paid for raking with the leaves or cleaning out the garage or doing those kind of things and but it also came with responsibility that they had to also buy some of their own things with that money. It has never been a time where they could earn money and just go blow it. No. I was encouraged one year when a man told us that he never spent any money that he was given. From a young age his parents

kept every financial gift and put it in a in a savings account for him and I thought wow how wonderful that would have been. Well some people are frustrated with daily chores and I know you got frustrated with that so you created this little popsicle stick system. I can't remember how it worked but I remember seeing it but tell us about that. Well I I put I made it and had it hanging on the refrigerator one for each boy and they had little pockets and they would move when they did a chore they've moved the popsicle stick from the to-do pocket to the done pocket. That worked for a year or two. Well and they didn't get their income if those things weren't done. Right. So if the popsicle sticks weren't moved over which was visible to all of us there was no financial reward. Right and that's real life I mean you've got to work to get paid. Yeah you know besides allocation I remember we we wanted our boys to learn to work. Now that was emphasized in our home and I wanted it emphasized with our children that they would one day be sort of work ready ready to be employed by somebody else and so we did a lot of things to prepare them for that. I would put want job wanted ads on the refrigerator if I had something that was sort of over and above I would see if the boys would apply for that job like you know we did cutting trees and and you know cutting firewood one year the boys did that we had a project to break up concrete but I had to hire somebody to do it so they had to apply for a job which meant that they were learning to work for an outside employer. Mm-hmm well and all the boys had jobs outside the home too when they became teenagers. I remember taking our oldest telling him to dress up that there was a caterer within walking distance from our home and so we went over there and taught him talked to him about an interview and he got hired on the spot. You also looked for internships and apprenticeships for our children. The woodworking the guy who did wood work. Oh yeah for Luke or for Todd that's right a friend's father had a woodworking shop on his property and he offered to teach our son what he knew. And wood working stayed with him all of his life. But Todd had to work for him too in his garden. Yeah in exchange for the apprenticeship. You know also I can think

of a situation where sometimes I I wanted the boys to work outside the home so they weren't always under me and I would have to go to someone that I knew and ask them if they would be interested in hiring one of my my boys, and I have a friend who even went so far as to pay for the salary of their child to work under somebody else outside the home just to get the experience of having a boss. I think it's very important if it's possible to have them work where they can gain skills that will be used in their future. Do you want to elaborate on that a little bit? Well it's very hard today to say get them a job outside the home because the work environment can be really toxic, it can be dangerous, and so you have to teach them to work in an area where it's going to benefit them long-term, what I call a resume building job, or you have to teach them to start a business and to be entrepreneurs. And our children, it's interesting, two of them have really never had formal sector jobs, I mean other than just little temporary work your way through college kind of jobs. They've been totally independent and manage their own finances, manage their own income, and have done very, very well at that. And of course we've got the two younger ones that are now coming along and being able to do that. You know when it came to cars, we made a decision to help them with the first car, and we look back and I think we would probably do that a little bit differently. I think that having them learn to save for a car, to be responsible for the insurance, is a big deal. Well one of our children wrecked his car that we had helped buy, and I remember I said, well the second car's on you,

and he was able to go out that very week and pay cash for his own car. And after he did that, which I was very proud of, he'd had money in his savings account to get his own car, you know, I said, are you broke now? And he went back and looked in his three ring binder and came back and reported, absolutely not, I'm not broke, I've still got actually plenty of money. And so the system had really worked. Yeah, one thing I think that I would love to have done different looking back, is taught them to invest, because they accumulated a lot of savings, cash. But had they, had we taught them how to buy stock, or you know, to learn different investing tools, it would have been great.