On Teaching Our Children How To Save

When Rainie was Grade 2, I started giving her 10 pesos everyday as her baon. This was on top of her packed meals. I was thinking that by giving her 10 pesos I'm teaching her how to budget her money. But every time she would go home, I would inquire of her 10 pesos and she would account that her money has gone kaput because she bought, at least to me, a wide range of non-sensical food items - from gummy worms to gulaman to candies and ice cream. I was in a dilemma of not giving her anymore money and the need to teach her the lesson of financial management. Then a friend told me the wonderful idea of not giving her the money but recording it, it was a case of paper gain and paper loss. Everything was just on paper. Here's how we did it. I got a used notebook. And every day, I would record the date and write down 10 pesos beside it. I told Rainie that if she would need to spend on anything she would need to tell me. I would give her the money and deduct the amount from our record. This way I was able to monitor her expenses and she was able to track the money she has. I give her a 10 peso incentive for every week she didn't spend anything. This worked. For the two years we've been doing this, Rainie was able to save around 8,000 pesos yearly. I asked her to deposit this in the bank under her own account.

It was indeed a very good exercise. Rainie is now more cautious and conscious on budgeting and spending her money. Thanks to my friend Dang Baldonado for this brilliant idea. 

How about you? Do you have some budgeting ideas? Please do share on the comment section below.