Summer Learning: It's All About the Benjamins

I can not be the only parent that dreads taking kids to the store sometimes. Now that Savannah and Mikey are a little older they have started asking  begging for things in the store. Up until about a month ago we would have peaceful trips to the store. I could scan the aisles, get what I needed and be done....

Lately when we're in the store these kids point out every sparkly brightly colored character filled item that they see. Mikey has never even seen Finding Nemo or Dory but the other day when we were in the store he insisted that we stop to, "Say hello to Dory fish."

I don't even know Dory like that.

Telling the kids that they don't need more toys or things hasn't really worked for me. They don't get it. They think debit cards are endless pits of money. Maybe someone's card is but not mine. This Mom and her debit card have limits. There are limits to my debit, m'kay...

To give them a real idea of how money works I decided to take a page from The Cosby Show and turn our house into a store. Let's play a game I said (in my scary Saw movie voice)....

I told them whoever had the most money at the end of the day could have an Oreo. Y'all I charged these kids for everything and I allowed them to buy whatever they wanted.

When that money started leaving their little hands it was priceless....

An instant light went on. (Well at least it did for Savannah. I don't think Mikey cared.) We talked about working to earn money, saving your money and spending money on things you need or want.

If you follow me on snapchat you know Savannah is a good little saver already. She saved over $100 in change during our time in Texas. Hopefully this little exercise helped her learn a bit more about the value of a dollar. The verdict is still out on Mikey - he demanded an Oreo for his time when my game was over.

What do you think about our little game? I think it was a fun way to get them to understand how money works.