Around Here, You've Got to Buy Your Happiness Kid

Since their recent discovery of the power of the almighty dollar, Elsa and (especially) Ashagre have been pretty consumed by the desire to spend their once sacred (only because Mommy and Daddy taught them no alternatives) stashes of cash. Each kid has a small wad of ones tucked away in their backpacks so they can purchase a pickle or a popsicle at the weekly school fundraisers whenever they so desire. Each kid talks regularly about what they want to buy next with their diminishing stashes of money.

Always on the lookout for a good teachable moment, Brent and I devised a scheme to try to help them learn a bit about the value of money. We rolled it out this weekend when Ashagre excitedly described the next set of legos he had his eye on. The short story is we've set up a savings goal for them, and, to make sure it was really enticing, we've made it a pretty big and exciting goal. The kids are currently saving to go to The Happiest Place on Earth. They're saving for a trip to Disneyland.

Brent did a bunch of research online to figure out how much it would cost for the whole family to go on a weekend trip to Disneyland. Despite that we live only two hours away, it is still a pretty expensive trip. The tickets aren't cheap, and we figured if we were going to do it right, we'd stay in a hotel near the park and go two days rather than make a too long day of it from Ventura. After his research, Brent got out the butcher paper and markers and made a chart.  Each kid is saving to pay their own way - hotel and tickets - to Disneyland. $250 each, because we're probably the only parents on earth mean enough to make their kids pay for their own trip to Disneyland.

To introduce the whole scheme, we told Ashagre that he could buy the legos he had in mind, but that he first had to listen to what Daddy wanted to tell him. Brent brought both kids into their bedroom where he had hung the savings chart and explained what it was all about. Ashagre was not pleased as he quickly found himself in the position of making a tough decision on how to spend his money. Elsa, on the other hand, was all in. She quickly dumped out her piggy bank and offered up everything she had down to the last quarter and giggled excitedly as Brent colored in her side of the chart. She's already nearly half-way there. Ashagre, still clearly not happy with the plan, pouted from his bed as we re-explained that he was more than welcome to buy legos, but that meant it would take longer to get to Disneyland. He begrudgingly came up with a plan to buy his legos the next day and then put whatever he had left toward the Disney fund. He then warmed to the idea a little more and offered up $11 to get himself on the chart.

The savings plan is already teaching the kids some valuable lessons. Today, right before we went to buy the legos Brent found an oscillating sprinkler in the back yard that Ashagre had run over on his bike and broken. We changed our shopping plans a bit to swing by Lowes so he could buy Daddy a new sprinkler before we went to the bookstore that he had seen the legos at. He was relieved to have enough money for both items, and almost more excited about the sprinkler he picked out to replace Daddy's broken one than he was his legos. He was also pretty darn excited to hand over the rest of his stash, down to the quarters, to the Disney fund when we got home. Elsa, who I now think, that despite our best efforts to explain it to her, didn't understand that if she handed over all her money to the Disney fund wouldn't have access to it any more was a bit disappointed that she could not buy a Hello Kitty movie she decided she wanted (seriously, where do they learn about this stuff?) because she has no money to spend. (I, on the other hand, did a little happy dance in my mind.) She was quick to turn her disappointment into a chance to brag about how close she was already to meeting her Disney goal though. Both kids have already asked how they might be able to earn some more money.

So we'll see how it goes.