2019-2020 was an exercise in teaching our elementary school-aged children personal finance, driving independence, and encouraging them to make constrained resource decisions.
The Lennon children formally adopted a paperless economy on the evening of January 20, 2019. Husband commenced the ceremonies by sending the littles off to round up all of the money in their possession. They were instructed to purge their rooms of all US currency and meet back at the kitchen table. After scrounging around their rooms, they returned with everything from pennies and golden dollars to two-dollar bills and Andrew Jacksons.
We made it clear that there was to be no more cash in anyone’s rooms. In fact, any cash found after that night would count against their balances. We encouraged each child to do one final check and to think through where else money might be hiding. Any cash that surfaced thereafter became Mom & Dad’s without debate.
Little Man started to panic, because Grandma had given them each small bags of coins at the holidays, and he didn’t know where his pouch was. He estimated it had $7.50 in it. We gave him the benefit of the doubt and added that sum to his total with the expectation that once it turned up, he’d hand it over.
Upon dumping their piles of loot, they were set to the task of stacking the coins in piles of ten. I found a stash of coin wrappers and the family started rolling up each denomination. Upon completion, each child did the math to count up his or her riches.
The girls announced that they had combined their resources a while back, which sounded good until Baby Girl objected to splitting it in half. That launched a brief and decisive discussion about what it means to combine finances, and a strong recommendation not to do that again anytime soon. She resigned herself to the 50/50 split that Husband mandated.
They inquired about the Amazon gift cards they’d received. We added the balances to their spending ledgers, while physically surrendering them to me. After a brief moment of panic, the kids were reassured that if they wanted to use their money at Amazon, they still could.
Ultimately with gift cards and Grandma’s magic pouch of change taken into consideration, plus an extra little padding for the younger two, each child had the following starting balances in their spending accounts:
Baby Girl (Age 9½): $57.25
Little Man (Age 7½): $45.00
Wee One (Age 5½): $45.00
Everyone agreed that there were no more outstanding IOUs.
As we started clearing the cash and gift cards from the table, the older two looked bewildered. Tears welled up. Little Man thought he was losing all of his dough. Baby Girl was uncertain, while Wee One giggled as is her hallmark. Husband and I paused, realizing we had not adequately explained how the electronic economy would work.
It took a few different approaches, helping them understand that this would be a very good thing for each of them. First came explaining how even if the physical currency was no longer in play, their purchasing power remained.
Transparent Accounting
The family needed a system to account for the kindercash. I created a simple Google sheets ledger in my Google account. Husband and I have edit access. The kids all have view-only access, initially via a family Google account (and later shared with their individual Google accounts). They could see where their accounts stood at any moment in time. Nothing fancy was required; simply two ledgers per child: one for spending and one for saving.
In Google Sheets, this translated to a very simple table, duplicated three times. Each entry is dated, with the starting balance, transaction amount, and updated balance just like in a checkbook register. I added a final column to record the transaction’s purpose, anticipating future disputes, and despair over where all the money went. Every adult on earth has asked that question at least once if not a million times. It was fair to expect the children would have those same moments of disbelief.
To illustrate how this would work, Husband put each child’s total in their spending column, showing them that they had credit for each dollar they previously had. He explained that each child still had that much money to use and that we would hand it over when they wished to spend it. The only difference was that the family would track it on the spreadsheet where anyone could see their balances anytime they wanted.
We share ours with our kids (they're in view only so they can't tinker with the balances!), so they can check their balances at any time, striving for full transparency. We discourage most competition between them, but we make no secret of who has how much money on their ledger. While it's a strange US taboo not to talk about net worth or money in any real terms, we believe that open dialog is more productive. They can see one another's balances as well.
I am happy to share the blank template with you - go to this link and save a copy to your own drive. Modify it to your heart's content.
To engage the clientele, they were invited to name it thus instilling a sense of ownership in their personal credit union. After vetoing any potty words, the crew christened their new treasury simply The Lennon Bank. Soon it would be time for their first deposits.
Change in the Sofa
Throughout the first couple of weeks additional cash surfaced. Each was diligent in bringing it to my or Husband’s attention as soon as it was located, ranging from two pennies to a tray of small change. The children’s disappointment was evident, though unspoken, with each coin they turned in.
I suggested that we start collecting the change in a jar, then if and when it had any meaningful value to it, we could go get donuts or something. It seemed to make them feel less cheated out of what they felt was theirs. After the first few incidents, they accepted it as the norm.
The children have found random coins while out and about. The oldest spotted a quarter and a penny in a store parking lot, which she turned in to be added to her ledger. Every found penny was given its due respect, and it showed up as a line item. The lesson here is that even pennies should be minded.
While that lesson may or may not sink in solely through these practices, it opened up the opportunity for me to share my triumphs as a kid in being the best coin spotter in town.
When I was their age, we still had coin-operated public phones and soda machines. Dollar and credit card devices hadn’t yet been added. My finger went into every single coin return I passed, and it became a running joke in the family. The best I ever did was find a $20 bill in a department store. Nobody was anywhere near it, so I took it as mine.
Between coin returns and the T-token rejection returns on the Boston subway, I probably collected close to $150 from other people’s negligence by the time I’d graduated college. I’ll confess I’m proud of that.
I’ll also confess that I’m still tempted to check the coin return whenever I walk past one, though I know nobody uses coins anymore. Whether habit, nostalgia, or wishful thinking drives this urge – I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
Stephanie Brooke Lennon is the author of Family Bank Blueprint, GoldQuest, and What Would Water Do? Simple Strategies for Navigating Life's Obstacles. Her titles are available in Paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com. Follow Stephanie Brooke on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Amazon, and at ​BrookeLennon.com.