The 'Live Our Dreams' Shop

Bryn and I have discussed ways we can help teach our children the value of money and the importance of managing it. Savannah has reached a stage where she wants to buy just about everything she sees and lacks understanding of how far funds stretch. And I'm sure you can guess what the younger sister does too each time we visit the shops.

We also constantly come up with and implement creative games to help the girls overcome certain difficulties they may be facing e.g. being too scared to go upstairs alone or helping them learn the value of co-operation or becoming better at working around the house.

Last week for Family Home Evening we introduced the 'Marble Game'. (Mum played this game with us during the school holidays when we were growing up and I remember it fondly. Only, it was called 'Smiley Faces').

Every time we notice a good deed, a kind gesture, a chore completed after having been asked ONCE, a co-operative attitude, a marble is chosen and placed in a labeled cup. Better still, if one of the girls uses their initiative to help around the house or do a kind deed, a big gunnie worth two small marbles is up for grabs. Getting them to bed that night went like clockwork, as you can well imagine! The week went very well with just a few crazy moments, but on the whole this incentive really helped. They have a week to collect as many marbles as they can in order to buy treats/toys from the Harries' 'Live our Dreams' Shop on Saturday mornings. Each item is marked with a price tag. Now this is where Bryn's money management skills come in. First of all, they count out their earnings and pay a 10% tithe. The next withdrawal is savings (Bryn even offers interest on saved marbles!) and the rest is for spending. This is where it became so fascinating. They looked and touched and tried to decide which items they were going to buy (there were some healthy options included), sometimes figuring out they didn't have enough for everything they wanted, so had to downsize the wish list and exchange purchases. Savannah ended up taking 2 little treats worth about 8 marbles total (when she had earned about 34). She said she was going to save the rest for next week! I was kind of confused and jumped in and offered other options, as she had plenty of 'money' left. Bryn gave me the beady eyeball stare and then I realised my daughter had taught me something I can definitely improve on--the value of saving more for later! It's such a fun little family project and we hope to continue with this, killing two birds with one stone.

ps, it's called the 'Live our Dreams' Shop because that's one part of our family mission statement that we're working on--teaching, learning and becoming better at money management so we can live our dreams.