Toddler Talk on Financial Peace Junior

This week we began Financial Peace Junior with our oldest (3 y/o). Financial Peace Junior is a set of tools and resources designed to help parents teach their kids how to manage their money. Kids have a commission chart to keep track of their chores, how much each of those chores are worth and how much commission they will be receiving daily and weekly.

Once you pay your little one, there are three envelopes that they separate there money into. Give, Save and Spend. We are using the give for Rhiannon's tithe, it can also be used for charity. As for her save, she hasn't decided what she wants to save up for. I am thinking a trip to Target to pick something is in order.

As for how this is all working. Let me just start by saying, I was a little bit worried that Rhiannon wouldn't grasp it. She is only 3. How would she comprehend any of it?

She shocked me. We set up a list of chores and she has been rocking it. She will finish one task and ask what's next. She has lots of little jobs around here and only wants more.

When she is paid, she instantly asks "How much for God?". We are so excited for her. It makes me a little sad how grown up she is but this is a huge step in getting our little one to help, all while she learns proper money management that we all need.

Steven and I are currently going through the debt snowball plan. It is amazing how easy it is to reach goals when you take time to plan things out and stick to it. We have paid off so much debt and are so close to being debt free. Doing it all on a very tight budget. Before starting the snowball plan and working out a strict budget, we were hardly paying our bills, putting excess on credit cards and struggling. With the same (even slightly less) income, by simply managing a cash budget we are not only paying our bills but almost out of debt.

Why do I mention any of this in a toddler talk post, a post about Rhi's money management? A couple of reasons.

1. If we were taught to properly manage our money at a young age, we would not need to go through any of this. Our generation is so dependent on "credit". We do not realize that credit is a friendly word for debt. We want to train our children up, knowing that acquiring debt is dangerous. 
2. What we teach our kids about money means nothing if we cannot manage our own. If we gave the kids all of the resources that Dave Ramsey and Financial Peace Junior offer but did not stay out of debt ourselves, what would we really be teaching them. Our children learn directly from our actions and how we live our lives. Us being debt free and managing our money well is detrimental in teaching our kids to be debt free.

I am bias to Dave Ramsey and all that he offers on his site/radio show because I know that it is what worked for us. Whether your follow our lead or go another direction I would highly recommend that you start your children up on a money management plan as early as possible.

For more info on the Debt Snowball plan, Financial Peace and/or Financial Peace Junior go visit Dave Ramsey's website.

What are you and your toddlers up to this week?