Letting Go
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Over the past few years, post-separation if I’m honest, not just post-divorce, I have intentionally taken control of my finances. I’ve developed my financial values, created habits and routines that work for me and are aligned to my values, and have even helped others figure that out for themselves. As I’ve learned, I’ve evolved in my thinking, but one thing has been constant: I want to teach Bear how to navigate these things for herself so she is better positioned as she grows up than I was and doesn’t have to learn these lessons in her late 30s like I did. So when she turned 4, I started doing allowance with her.
Now first, let me explain my allowance philosophy. It is not tied to anything, chores, nothing, because my sole purpose in giving Bear allowance is to give her the opportunity to learn how to manage money, and the best way to do that is by giving her actual money to use. In my. household, chores are part of everyone’s responsibility because you’re part of this family. We all contribute, or as I like to say all the time, “Teamwork makes the dream work.” (I believe the quote is attributed to John Maxwell.)
Okay, now that that is out of the way, let me explain how we do allowance in this house. We live in a digital world, so everything goes directly into her savings account through automatic transfer. I know people will ask how much she gets, it’s her age per week. So when we started, she was 4, and she got $4/week. She gets a raise every year :-). Now, electronic banking isn’t helpful for making things real for kids, so I purchased some play money from Amazon, to make it more real. Each time she receives allowance, we distribute it across 3 categories: Giving/Sharing, Savings, Spending. There are lots of cool three part banks to allow you to do this, this is the one my daughter picked out. While she’s young, I set the percentages:
10% to Giving/Sharing
45% to Savings
45% to Spending.
As she gets older, I’ll allow her to determine what those percentages are. I also track her budget electronically using YNAB (stands for You Need a Budget), which is the budgeting app I also use for my household budget and my businesses. She has her own budget in there, and it helps me ensure what’s in the bank is accurate.
Now, over the time we’ve done this, I still have been controlling Bear’s use of her spending money. We will go to Target (yes, it’s my favorite store), and she’ll ask to buy a toy with her spending money. If it seems too expensive, I’ll tell her no, that’s too expensive. One day, a couple years ago, I was finishing a call with a friend of mine while we were wandering the toy section. He heard Bear ask for a particular toy, and I told her it was too expensive. He said to me, “Just ask her if she has money for that.” My response was, “I can’t, because she does have enough.” He then proceeded to lightly chastise me for not allowing her to spend her own money. After all, he knew my reasoning for allowance, so basically called me a hypocrite. Whatever. 🙄
Truth is, he was right (I know you’ll see this blog post, so yes, I actually said you were right ). How will Bear ever understand how money operates, make a decision that she later may regret, or make decisions she’s really proud of if I’m regulating everything? So . . . I’ve been slowly letting go. Last week, we had to make a Target run to grab some clothes for her, and she asked if she could get a toy with her spending money. I told her yes. We got the clothes, then walked the aisles of the toy section. We literally walked them twice before I said, “What are you looking for?” “I want something from Encanto, Mommy.” Well, I remembered seeing an endcap of a couple of Encanto toys, so I took her over there. The endcap was almost completely wiped out, but there was one toy: a musical version of the family house that also did some light show type stuff. Bear was smitten. She asked if she could get it. It was $75. My Mommy brain said no, but instead, I told her let’s look at her spending money budget. We took a look at the number, discussed if it was higher or lower than $75 (it was higher), and we concluded she had enough money to buy it. So, she grabbed it and off to the register we went!
Bear was so proud of her toy! We pulled out her bank and budget when we got home, and pulled the total amount out of her spending money and put it back in the bank. I also electronically transferred the money out of her savings into my account (where the transaction would be withdrawn). Sidenote: The upside of using play money: it’s also a great time to reinforce math and money (what’s a nickel, a dime, a quarter).
Now, My Mommy heart is still like “I can’t believe she spent $80 (with taxes and my RedCard discount) on a toy.” But I had to let go. Because a big part of parenting is equipping our kids to be awesome adults. And if I keep telling her how to spend her money, she’ll never know how to make choices on her own, or will never experience the moment when she’s spent all her money and wants something else, but can’t get it. Letting go is the hardest part of parenting, and it’s required at every stage. Sometimes it’s little, like letting them fall when they’re trying to walk, or letting them buy a toy that costs them $80. But eventually, it will be navigating work situations and learning to handle that. (For those who are new, I have two older daughters (24 and 17) who, while not my biological children, are my chosen daughters, my forever family. I have never and will never refer to them as stepdaughters).
Letting go is hard, but it is, in fact, the most important part of parenting. And what a gift that Bear has the safety net of Mommy where she can learn these lessons. I’m grateful to give that gift to her, as much as I am grateful that she teaches me daily how to be a better parent, and a better person.
