Saving and Spending
My oldest son turns 5 in August. He's growing by leaps and bounds. He "went for a run" with his dad this weekend for over a mile, although I've been told that they walked most of the way. He also is about to learn his first spending and saving lesson (maybe).
He fell in love with a giant "funny ball" in the Aldi's ad (it's 51 inches in diameter and cost $29.99). Since we had just bought a water play toy AND a red wagon, I vetoed the purchase. He REALLY wanted it though. Enough that he picked up and vacuumed the living room by himself to earn $1 towards it.
So, my husband and I had a discussion. because Aldi's normally only carries a limited amount of these toys, so by the time he earned $30 for it, it wouldn't be available anymore. Plus he's not even 5 yet, so is it realistic to make him wait as long as it would take him to "earn" the money. On the other hand, we really didn't want to spend the $30 on a toy that we don't think he's really going to enjoy that much and might break quickly. But, he did sleep with the ad. And he took it to Vacation Bible School.
So after some discussion, we purchased the toy while he was at Vacation Bible School and put it in our closet. So far he hasn't mentioned it since Vacation Bible School and he came home without the ad. So, if he forgets about it, we can still return it to Aldi's since I've kept the receipt. If he remembers, we're going to give him 2 weeks of "earning" towards the toy and then allow him to purchase it with his "savings" (he already has $5 saved up, and we figure if he does about one chore a day for 2 weeks, we can chip in to "share" the purchase with him at that time).
The lesson he learns will either be:
He fell in love with a giant "funny ball" in the Aldi's ad (it's 51 inches in diameter and cost $29.99). Since we had just bought a water play toy AND a red wagon, I vetoed the purchase. He REALLY wanted it though. Enough that he picked up and vacuumed the living room by himself to earn $1 towards it.
So, my husband and I had a discussion. because Aldi's normally only carries a limited amount of these toys, so by the time he earned $30 for it, it wouldn't be available anymore. Plus he's not even 5 yet, so is it realistic to make him wait as long as it would take him to "earn" the money. On the other hand, we really didn't want to spend the $30 on a toy that we don't think he's really going to enjoy that much and might break quickly. But, he did sleep with the ad. And he took it to Vacation Bible School.
So after some discussion, we purchased the toy while he was at Vacation Bible School and put it in our closet. So far he hasn't mentioned it since Vacation Bible School and he came home without the ad. So, if he forgets about it, we can still return it to Aldi's since I've kept the receipt. If he remembers, we're going to give him 2 weeks of "earning" towards the toy and then allow him to purchase it with his "savings" (he already has $5 saved up, and we figure if he does about one chore a day for 2 weeks, we can chip in to "share" the purchase with him at that time).
The lesson he learns will either be:
- He didn't want it that much and so he didn't buy it.
- He really wanted something and worked hard, and was able to purchase it.
- Or, he really wanted something and worked hard and spent all his money and it was a foolish purchase.
Check back in a few weeks to see how it turns out. I'm interested to see it myself.
It's actually a pretty good price, because the ball is $50 at Amazon.
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