Kids and Money – Page 3 – Grocery Shrink

Meet Kid-preneur: Caleb (13)

By Angela on October 6, 2015

When we were kids, my brother had a trailer that hooked up to the minivan. He and a friend mowed grass for around 20 clients on a weekly basis. Darren grew up doing something similar.

So when a mass email came through our church asking for someone to mow 2 apartment complexes, we jumped on it and Caleb’s business was born. Darren imagined it as something all the boys could do together so they named it: “Coffman Brothers.” Turns out for the last 2 years it has been something Heidi and Caleb do together while the other boys are growing bigger. She doesn’t mind being called a “brother.”

Their first residential client gave them the nickname “The Green Team” and it stuck. Now they call themselves The Coffman Brother’s Green Team. (In Missouri If your legal name is in your business title, you don’t have to get a fictitious name registry–saves steps.) In addition to mowing they do storm and leaf cleanup and weeding/brush removal and this winter plan to do snow removal too.

Caleb didn’t have much say in choosing what he did for a business. We decided it was good for him to work, to save up as much money as possible so he could have future choices, and made it happen. He has earned and saved more than any other kid in the family, but would he do it over again? I turned on the camera and asked him some questions.

This is day 6 of our series 31 days of Kids and Money

Meet Kid Entrepreneur, Heather

By Angela on October 5, 2015

Heather is fairly private and doesn’t like to appear on my blog or Facebook. She gave permission for this spotlight and even granted a video interview in case it might help another aspiring kid-preneur.

When you don’t get an allowance and you have wish list too expensive for a birthday or Christmas gift….what’s a tween to do?

Around here we call it work. When Heather (11) decided she needed an IPod, she asked me what kind of jobs I was hiring for at the moment. I listed some of the usual: deep scrubbing the kitchen floor, cleaning the laundry room, organizing my office, cutting down overgrown brush. She passed.

I happily hired other pleasantly motivated children to do those jobs. They counted their money in front of her, and she thought a little more about her situation.

She came and found me where I was working, and sprawled across my bed. “Mom, how much do IPods cost?” We looked them up at the Apple Store & Amazon and compared those prices with buying used from Swappa. Swappa won out and I assured her while the price still looked high, it was within reach if she learned to work.

I offered again to let her to clean the kitchen floor. This time she took it. Then she asked, “What ELSE can a kid do for money? I mean, besides cleaning?” We had a good talk about bringing value to the market place by freeing someone else make more money, or by doing something that they can’t or don’t want to do themselves.

Then we brainstormed a list of things that Heather (at 11) could do that might be valuable to someone else. She picked her favorite thing and we wrote up a business plan. She decided to offer her services as a mother’s helper: $5 an hour for complete child entertainment while the mother worked somewhere else in the home. She packed a bag of books and activities and we talked about possible discipline scenarios; cooking options if she was working during meal time; and how to handle multiple children at once.

Then I put a note out on Facebook announcing her skills, experience, rate, and availability. Within 24 hours she was booked for the summer with 4 different clients each requesting weekly or biweekly service. She had so much business that she had to hire her older sister to fill in for her on occasion. In a month she saved enough to buy a used IPod and kept working anyway. It felt good to be useful to an adult, to be meaningful in a child’s life and to earn money doing it. She came home from work skipping and smiling and energized.

Here’s a rarely seen video interview with Heather. I apologize in advance that the sound is so terrible. I was sitting closer to the mic than she was, there were kids playing on the playground behind my house making background noise that was easy to ignore in person, and this was the first day of getting a voice after a bad case of laryngitis. BUT better imperfect and done, than never done at all.

This is Day 5 of our series 31 Days of Kids and Money

Their First Bank Account

By Angela on October 4, 2015

When I sold Mary Kay full time I had a customer who had NEVER had a bank account in her life. She cashed her paycheck on pay day and lived on the cash until it was gone. She would order from me soon after. When she was out of money, she was literally out of money. They had almost no furniture and no savings but had money for cigarettes, a great tan, fast food and awesome skincare.

She knew my second job was to teach people how to manage money, but she never believed she could have prosperity. Her situation was just a few decisions from turning around and yet it was so far away. She became a grandma at 32 and her mother was a great-grandma at 48. The poverty cycle was going from generation to generation.

She had so many things going for her. She remembered my kids and asked about them when I made deliveries. She made me feel special and doted on her family. Her personality was everything I look for in a team member, except she didn’t want more. She didn’t want it, because she didn’t believe she could have it.

I decided then, that my kids weren’t going to grow up thinking that was normal. I wanted them to have a bank account and be used to managing it. I also loved that money in a kid’s bank account is less accessible, handy when you’re saving up for your first car.

It’s great to open a child’s first bank account shortly after birth and start depositing baby gift and birthday money in there. If you didn’t do that it’s even more fun to go when they are old enough to write their own name on the application and plunk down their own cash for deposit. Whenever you do it, just see that it gets done.

While you are there, ask about banking fees. Banks and credit unions have certain accounts that are free and others that charge fees when there are fewer than 7 transactions in a month. Taking a few extra minutes to understand each account can save you in the long run, and if that bank doesn’t have an account you like go to another one. They are all different.

The main thing is for your kids to see banks, managing accounts, balancing checkbooks, and saving money as a normal part of life, and to get experience managing things before it gets complicated. If your kids are older, it’s not too late. As my friend, Stacy says, it’s never too late unless you’re dead.

This is day 4 of our series: 31 days of Kids and Money

3 Ways to Pay the Kids

By Angela on October 3, 2015

Allowance vs Commissions….it doesn’t matter at our house, because either way you look at it, the money comes from the family budget. When your budget is super tight, that’s not an option.

Just so we’re talking about the same things:

Allowance is money kids get for living. They are usually paid by the week or the month and use that to practice money management. Kids with allowances are usually expected to pay for their own entertainment, school lunches and sometimes clothing too.
Commission is an allowance tied to performance. Kids earn their commissions by doing all their chores and having good behavior. It’s usually a set amount similar to an allowance, but they might not get it all if their performance isn’t up to par.

My kids get neither. We pay one child $1 a week for trash and another $3 to mow our yard. Occasionally I offer a quarter here and there to do some of the harder chores that are above and beyond their normal job description. Split that however you like between 6 kids and they don’t have enough money to learn how to manage it well. If they drop a quarter in the plate at church, it took a lot of work to earn that.

If I have a job that I would have hired an adult to do (because I had the budget for it) and one of my children could do that job, I offer it do them. I treat it like a job interview and if they act lazy or less than thrilled I don’t hire them and offer it to someone else. Those types of jobs don’t come up a lot, so our kids have remained relatively broke (though are usually enthusiastic about an opportunity.)

I want my kids to know how to handle money. To know how, they have to practice. In order to practice, they actually need money. It either has to come from me, or someone else.

3. We aren’t into begging people to pay our kids for things they wouldn’t normally pay for, so we taught them marketable skills and sent them out to the real world to bring in money apart from our family budget. So far it is working. Its harder on us while none of them are drivers, because we have to taxi them to their work. The hassle is worth it.

Next week I’m going to interview each one and let them tell you about their businesses (or future plans for one) and all the details. It’s going to be fun, because you never know what kids are going to say.

Do your kids get an allowance or commission? How do you teach them money management?

This is day 3 of our series: 31 days of Kids and Money

7 Things to Teach Our Kids About Money

By Angela on October 2, 2015

When I look at my kids, I want the world for them. I want to protect them from pain and sorrow and all of the hard. I can’t do that, I know. The pain and sorrow and hard is what works in their lives to build the character they need to be useful to God. Character is like money. It’s easier to develop character if you already have some. When bad stuff happens to people without foundational character, it makes them bitter. If I can’t protect my kids from all the bad, I want to at least equip them to get the most out of it when it happens.

With that in mind, I want them to know:

1. Money comes from Work. Work is just another word for helping people. It can be fun, but it doesn’t have to be fun. You are not above any legitimate job. My ultimate goal for you is to find work that uses the unique gifts and talents God gave you, but there may be a season in life where you just do a job because you need to eat.

2. Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it does buy choices. Money is a tool for you to use to provide for yourself and your family, to help other people, and to create opportunities. Money gives you more choices in life and I want you to have a lot of it. It’s better to be poor and have God than to be rich without him. But it’s even better to be both rich and Godly. The more money you have, the more people you can help.

3. Patience is the opposite of impulsive. It’s being willing to wait until you understand something before you invest in it. It’s waiting for a good price. It’s saving up cash to make a purchase instead of borrowing money. Patience will save you a ton of money.

4. Budgeting is freedom. It’s knowing how much money you have, what your necessary bills are and making a decision about what you are going to spend your money on ahead of time. Budgeting brings order to chaos, harmony to marriage, and prosperity in scarcity. The easiest way to stay on budget is to use cash envelopes so you can see at a glance at the time of purchase where you are with your plan.

5. Tithing and giving is a blessing. Everything you have already belongs to God. He just asks for 10% back as a good faith gesture, the rest you get to manage for Him. In exchange He offers you greater prosperity if you are faithful with your management. Giving is separate from tithing and it’s supposed to feel good. There will be hands coming at you from every direction asking for your money. As a manager for God you need to make sure that you give well, research and choose wisely. The most satisfying form of giving is done in secret and blesses someone directly.

6. You deserve it when you can pay cash for it. We live in a prosperous nation, so it’s hard to feel how rich we really are. Messages bombarde us from the media: “You deserve a vacation” “You deserve a new car” “You deserve a fashionable outfit” There’s nothing wrong with having nice things. Borrowing money to get them, however, brings pain to your life. It’s spending money you haven’t earned yet, which makes future work feel like working for no pay, slavery. It causes stress which can lead to arguments, sleepless nights, and illness. So when you are tempted to borrow money for something you “deserve” remind yourself: “You deserve to be free.” “You deserve a peaceful sleep” “You deserve good relationships and good health” You deserve it when you can pay for it.

7. Stuff happiness isn’t lasting happiness. When you get something new, it feels really good for a moment, but that good feeling won’t last. It’s not wrong to feel good when you get something new, but don’t chase that brand of happiness. Lasting happiness comes from knowing you belong to God and that He is personally invested in you. It comes from living a life of service to Him by serving others.

This is day 2 of our series: 31 days of Kids and Money

31 Days of Kids and Money–Day 1

By Angela on October 1, 2015

Hi Friends, I’ve been watching the whole 31 days thing since the Nester started it 7 years ago, and thinking I could never write for a whole 31 days on one topic without taking off a day. This is the year I’m finally ~~crazy~~ confident enough to give it a go.