Instead of the decorated cup with their name on it, their pennies will now go in here:
Instead of two pennies for staying in their bedroom until SEVEN ZERO ZERO in the morning, I'll now give three pennies. I'll let the kids decide which slot to put each penny in. I'm unsure about the investment slot. That's a bit much at this point. I may just put a piece of tape over it or something. Ideas for that?
The idea of saving has been discussed because sometimes they want something big (read: too expensive) with their twenty pennies and we've told them that that particular item costs thirty pennies and if they'd like to buy that, they need to save their twenty and keep earning before they can afford it. That's not a new concept so the save slot will make sense right away. Also, every Thanksgiving and Christmas we go bigCostcoshopping and then drive right to the food bank (Thanksgiving) or to the local fire station (Christmas) and donate all we've bought. We've had many great talks about how lots of boys and girls don't have the same things they have and how great it is that we can buy them and help them, especially at a special time like the holidays. When you can help someone, you do. Always. It's a lesson they already understand so the donate slot will be an easy one, too.
I've ordered each of them their own bank and am looking forward to receiving them in a few days. We'll start the new system then. I'm anxious to see who chooses to put how much where. I've decided I'll never interfere, they can choose how much goes where and then for the donation money I'll let them choose what to buy to donate when it reaches ten pennies. It could get interesting...
If you are interested in this bank, you can click HERE to buy from Amazon.
What a great idea. I love the bank.
ReplyDeleteFor kids, "investment" usually entails college, but what 5 or 3 year olds know what college is, let alone care at this stage of their lives even if they did know? You could bring in an expert in the field like Miss Cherry to explain compound interest, etc and the value of investing now as opposed to later. She's very persuasive! But long term ideas are a little hard to grasp for kids that young. Better to come up with short term "investments", something like "put 5 pennies in the 'investment' slot and by the end of the week you'll get 1 more penny just for leaving your 5 pennies in there. Pennies invested make more pennies!" Word to the wise though, you don't want to give them too much per penny, otherwise they'll start looking at it like a magical penny-making tree, dropping all their pennies in the investment slot, doing very little work while becoming lazy pennylords living high off the fat of the penny.
ReplyDeleteI think it's terrific that you already have been teaching them about donating. I need to do more of that with the kiddos.
ReplyDeleteJason's comment is wonderful! I do believe however that now is the time to start giving little ones an idea of what "long term" or "future" means. By leaving pennies in the "investment" tank "longer" they will see more accumulation and matching will grow into a bigger bank of pennies. After a "long" period let them withdraw SOME to buy something.
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