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#11
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Allowance tracking on Palm?
In article , Louise
wrote: On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 06:30:33 EDT, Scott Lindstrom wrote: Nathan Jones wrote: Robyn Kozierok wrote: does anyone track their kids' allowance on their Palm Pilot? Call me a Luddite, but one of the things *I* really liked about getting an allowance was, er, *getting* the allowance -- having it handed to me so I could hold the money actually in my hand and all. I also don't like the fact that Mom or Dad has to keep track of how much money a child has to spend. Being the devil's advocate here ... what do you do if your kids don't have their money with them, but want an impulse buy? Does it depend on whether you think the purchase is a good idea? What if it's near the end of the month or the end of the week (whatever their allowance period is) so they won't have the money until Saturday, but really want to buy a souvenir today? I usually ask them if they have their money. If they don't they ask if I'll buy it for them, and I say no. End of discussion. Rarely they will ask if they can borrow money, and I'll agree, although I always charge interest, so they really have to want something. I also pay interest when I borrow money from my kids. If it's the end of the month and they want something but have no money, tough. Usually they don't even ask if there's no money in their wallet -- DS in particular spends all his money (Bionicle Boy) as soon as he gets it. Scott DD 10 and DS 7 |
#12
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Allowance tracking on Palm?
In article , David desJardins
wrote: I think about 99% of the "money" that I spend is electronic debits of one form or another, not physical cash. My children will grow up into a world where that percentage is even higher. It seems a good thing, to me, for them NOT to be dependent on physical possession of money in order to make purchasing decisions or apply budget constraints. That seems like the path that leads to overspending as soon as children get their own credit cards and bank accounts. Maybe. But I *always* know how much cash is in my wallet [Usually none ] ... I have no clue how much $$ is in the bank. |
#13
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Allowance tracking on Palm?
Scott Lindstrom writes:
Maybe. But I *always* know how much cash is in my wallet [Usually none ] ... I have no clue how much $$ is in the bank. That sounds like a very strong argument in favor of your parents doing something differently. I know much more accurately how much money I have in the bank (i.e., within a few percent) than how much money is in my wallet (not infrequently, I'm surprised to look in my wallet and have no money). And I think that's really good, because the former is also much more important than the latter. If I run out of money in my wallet, it's no big deal; it's just a temporary short-term inconvenience. If I run out of money in the bank, I can't pay my bills! I don't want my kids to have a psychological difficulty understanding that the money in the bank is just as real as the money in their wallet. This discussion is convincing me more and more of the value of teaching them to handle electronic accounts at an early age. David desJardins |
#14
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Allowance tracking on Palm?
In article ,
chiam margalit wrote: I really don't like the idea of parents interfering in any way with allowance. If the money is the kids, then they get to do with it what they will within reason. I'm the one who wanted to track my kids' money on my palm, but I don't interfere with their use of it. If they have money in their account, they can spend it on whatever they want. Ask Matthew, who routinely "wastes" (IMO) his allowance on a claw machine I've tried to convince him he will probably never win. I've never really encouraged them to carry their cash with them, but my palm is always on me, so it makes spending more convenient for them. --Robyn |
#15
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Allowance tracking on Palm?
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#16
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Allowance tracking on Palm?
My problem with that system is that YOU are doing the tracking as
opposed to the kid doing the tracking. My oldest two are 12 and 9 respectively, and they hoard every nicket and pool it to buy new video games. You would not believe the horse trading that goes on, as they count and recount their cash and figure out how much more they need, how long it will take them save up, what extra chores they can do to earn a few more bucks, how much they can get for a trade in on old games etc. etc. They almost never just totally blow money on treats, since they are so focussed on saving up for some game. It may be low tech, but its Money Management 101 at its finest. When I was in my early teens (back in the 70's) my parents started me on an annual allowance. We sat down and figured out a budget together that included clothing, entertainment, bus and lunch money, books for school - everything we could think of. And then they GAVE me the big wad of cash and an account book. I had to keep track of everything I spent. I could ask for more money, but I had to be able to demonstrate where all the money went and why I needed more (i.e. prices had gone up, we'd forgotten to include something in the budget, something unanticipated had come up like a school trip (mostly to help me get thinking of all the things I needed to include in a budget). I know this wouldn't work for every kid, but it was great for me. The best lesson was that I'd get handed what seemed like a huge amount of money (a few hundred dollars back then) and would be amazed to find it didn't go that far when you added up everything even a teen needed money for. Mary G. |
#17
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Allowance tracking on Palm?
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#18
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Allowance tracking on Palm?
In article ,
Rosalie B. wrote: I think there are at least two different kinds of learning to be done with allowances. One is budgeting and one is keeping track of money. If you do the keeping track for them on the Palm, then they are not learning the skill of keeping track because you are doing it for them, and you are also not making them budget. I am indeed making them budget. My kids have several budget categories, and I track them all separately for them. At first, I set the portions of the allowance that go into the different budget categories (so I get them used to the concept of a budget, but they don't set the budget) but after they have some idea of how the different categories work, they are free to change their budget amounts around. I'm not sure what separate skill you are referring to as "keeping track of money" -- are you talking about physically knowing where they put it? Or just knowing how much they have at any time. They can request a balance from the Bank of Mom anytime, and we also go through their totals each week at allowance time, so they have a pretty good handle on that aspect of "keeping track". I'm surprised by the level of resistance to this idea, frankly. I don't carry all my cash with me, but I keep track of how much we have and when I want to make a purchase use a credit card (we get cash back and other benefits on the credit cards and pay them off fully every months, so I use it for convenience and the benefits they provide, not to go into debt to buy things). So, why would I expect my kids to carry all their cash with them so they'll have it to buy things they want. We usually do our shopping/errands after school, and they don't need money for anything at school, so it seems silly for them to carry it with them. Instead of carrying a debit or credit card, which seems inappropriate at 7 and 10yo, they use a virtual debit card against their palm bank balances. Why is that so odd and upsetting to so many people? So how did your parents handle this? Why are you so bad about remembering to pay them? They were bad about remembering to pay too. When we remembered, we'd try to figure out how many weeks they'd missed and how much they owed us. That is what I used to do too. But why not take advantage of the technology that exists to help us keep track of things. What possibility would there be of having them do their own allowances on your Palm? I think that would help them learn to keep track, so that they would KNOW whether they had money and wouldn't have to ask you if they had any. They'd have to ask to use my palm to do it anyhow, so I don't see the benefit. They do have their balances memorized anyhow; I'm the one who confirms whether they have enough when they decide to make a withdrawal. And if they lose track, they can just ask me to show them, just as they could have in prior generations gone to count the cash. I'd say that if they have large amounts in the bank waiting until they can think of something to spend it on, then they have too much money, except that I did that too when I was a kid. I accumulated my allowance and rarely spent any of it. They like big expensive lego sets, mostly. My 7yo just spent $80 on a remote-controlled lego stunt car that's way cool But he didn't save $80 on his own -- he got a $50 gift to jump-start him and that encouraged him to save long enough to get the item he wanted. My 10yo is more opportunistic. He saves gifts and allowance money knowing that eventually he will see something he'll really wants, and not want to have to wait to save up for it. Seems like a perfectly reasonable plan to me. We (DH and I) save discretionary money not necessarily knowing what we will spend it on in advance as well. --Robyn |
#19
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Allowance tracking on Palm?
In article ,
chiam margalit wrote: I really don't like the idea of parents interfering in any way with allowance. If the money is the kids, then they get to do with it what they will within reason. Once a parent has a say in it, even if the say is, "You ought to think about this because you're saving for that new dvd, REMEMBER???", then the whole point of learning financial responsibility is lost. I disagree with you on this point. I do do things like this with my kids when they are starting out with their allowance (whether cash or virtual). I think reminding them *at first* that if they spend the money now, they'll be disappointed when their savings for something larger don't increase, helps them learn the financial responsibility more easily. I don't do this anymore with my 10yo, who has long since learned to manage his own money admirably, but I do do it with my 7yo, who is still just learning. It's still 100% his decision, but I do insert some teaching as well. It hasn't been my experience that throwing them into budgeting and money management with no guidance is necessary to the development of good money management skills. --Robyn (mommy to Ryan 9/93 and Matthew 6/96 and Evan 3/01) |
#20
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Allowance tracking on Palm?
In article ,
chiam margalit wrote: I totally agree! What really blows me away with this system is that my kids are starting to be really good consumers, too. For example, we had to go clothes shopping for my daughter, who conveniently outgrew *all* her shul clothing right before the high holidays. At Old Navy there were two soda machines and she started whining about how thirsty she was, but my solid rule is, NEVER ANY SODA FROM MACHINES. Never! Talk about overpriced junk food! So, she say she has her own money and saunters over to the machine, where she sees they're selling cans of soda for $1.75 a can. She's *outraged* and can't believe what a ripoff that is. :-) :-) Like for 11 years I've been saying this to no avail but once it's *her* money, the lesson sinks in! :-) I don't see how this is any different for my kids. They want a soda, I won't buy it for them, they ask to use their own money and I ask how much they need and give it to them (if they still want it after seeing the price). It's not carrying their own money that makes them cautious about spending it, it's the fact that once they spend it, they won't have it for something else, a fact they can grasp just fine without holding the coins/bills in their hot little hands. (We're not talking about the 2yo here; he doesn't get an allowance at all yet.) If they ever saw that a can of soda was $1.75 they would be outraged as well and decline to spend that much of their own money. They're pretty thrifty, and they know what the junk foods they like "should" cost (but they're not soda drinkers; that's my vice). Of course, I've *never* seen a soda machine *that* outrageously priced! Cans are 40 to 75 cents here, bottles often as much as $1. Even in places like amusement parks and airports, I don't think I've ever seen $1.75 for a can! ouch!! I've been known to buy a nice cold coke for myself from a machine for 50 cents, even though that is more than buying it in a case in the grocery store. Some days it's definitely worth it ;-). I'm very interested in those new loadable credit cards for the kids once they get a bit older. I haven't investigated them carefully yet, but the idea seems great: you get a credit card and load it up with a set amount of money, and they carry it around and use it for what they want without having to carry a lot of cash. I think that's safer, plus I like the idea of not having ready cash for trash like those horrible teen magazines. Why not just get them debit cards on their own bank accounts? It sounds like the same concept, really, unless there are charges associated with one and not the other. But I don't see how either would translate to not having ready cash for teen magazines. Couldn't they just use the card to buy them? And I thought you didn't believe in exerting any influence over how your kids spent their own money anyhow. This sounds like you now do want to discourage certain types of purchases. --Robyn |
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