With all my heart, I believe in this :

“You Will never learn the value of money until you earn it yourself!”

Because of my ‘special‘ childhood, I had to start earning my first dollar when I was only 11-12 years old.

Believe it or not, that was how I started being a tuition teacher. I was giving tuition to my Mother’s friend’s daughter and soon words get around and I started to give tuition to kids around my neighbourhood.

Ever since I started earning money, money became very valuable to me. Sad to say, it was more important to me than my parents back then, at least my money does not disappoint me, does not give me heartache and does not betray my trust. *wink*

Because I value them (money) so much, I started to keep them close to me. Yes, that was how I began to save up quite a substantial amount of money for a Primary school kid. Then again, it all ends up the same way. *sigh* What to do? She is my Mother. I could not say “NO!” back then. My long-time readers will know what I’m talking about.

The best thing is, I started to spend wisely. I started to compare prices from different shops before I make any purchases. With this habit, I was able to get the same thing for a lower price. Sometimes, I could even get Two items for the price of one at certain shops compared to others.

Thus the moment I understood the value of money, I not only know what to spend on, where to spend on and better still, WHEN NOT to spend that money.

Primary School teaches how to COUNT money. Addition and Subtraction, Division and Multiplication. But schools do not teach the value of money, which is such a waste, because how a person manages his/her finances is a key to survival in this world of ours.

So the teaching has to be from home. Some friends of mine complained to me recently that their children kept asking them to buy things without thinking how ‘difficult‘ it was for them (the parents) to earn the money. When they do not buy things for the kids, the youngsters equate that to lesser love.

Amount of Money spent = Amount of Love given?
NO WAY!

To me, I am the hands-on type of Mummy. I am the ‘Make-the-Child-Feel‘ type of Parent.

If you want your child to FEEL the ‘hardship‘ of earning money, MAKE THEM EARN that dollar themselves.

If you want your child to UNDERSTAND the value of money, TEACH THEM to do price comparison.

Its a pity that I could only learned the value of money when I started to work in Primary 6. I wished I could have learned this knowledge and money management skill earlier. Seriously, now that I become who I am today, I thank God for giving me such a family so that I can learn and experience ALOT of IMPORTANT things much earlier in my life. (not being sarcastic at all) I MEAN IT!

Thus I told myself that my kids should learn about money the moment they know how to count money. So finance management skills started at home when they were as young as 5.

They are kids afterall. They do have temptations and more often than not, they had to struggle with their emotions too when they see something that they like and they know it is not a wise thing to buy it at that moment.

Such struggles are great training phase for the little brains as they weigh the pros and cons of spending that amount of cash in their piggy bank on something unnecessary.

And when they do fall for that temptations, they will value that ‘toy’ much more. How many of you have bought toys for your child and that love for the toy only lasted for 1 week or 1 month or 3 months? Its common, because that toy was not bought by your child’s ‘hard earn‘ money, so it is understandable that they do not value the toy as much as you wished they would.

I always tell Keatkeat and Binbin : “Before you spend that money, ask yourself, is it a NEED or a WANT?” (determining whether something is a need or a want can be a post by itself, which I am not going into this now.)

“If you know it is a WANT, you should forget about buying it.”

“But if you REALLY want it, then you must ask yourself, do you have more money coming in soon after you spend this money?”

“If yes, go ahead, spend it! Pamper yourself.”

Thus, my boys are constantly thinking of new creative ways to earn more money in order to keep the flow of money going.

Many of the people around me think I am crazy to teach kids such stuff! *laugh*
Well, I think it IS SO IMPORTANT TO TEACH them the value of money, so much so that I MUST teach them as early as possible, because THIS IS survival skills in this material world, which is full of temptations.

In fact just last month, I started teaching them why buying Lottery/ToTo and all sorts of gambling that involve money is = BURNING YOUR MONEY (literally). *wink*

 

Have you started to teach your child about the value of money too?

Teach Your Child the Value of Money