Proud Mommy Moment

One thing that Dave really talks about over and over again is how as adults, we have the power to change our family tree and really impact our children by taking control of our finances and modeling to them.

Matt and I have really taken this seriously and have worked very hard to be consistent in what we say and do, especially around the kids. Nicholas and Lauren are still way to young to catch on to the brainwashing we're doing, but Nathan is definitely starting to sip the Kool-Aid.

When we embarked on our Total Money Makeover, we also brought Nathan on board with us and started working with him to understand money and give him a real education in this area and not let him grow up clueless.

The way things currently work is Nathan gets a base allowance of $5 every 2 weeks, which is consistent with the allowance Matt and I give ourselves for "blow" money. The most important thing we've taught Nathan is that before he spends any of his allowance, he needs to set aside 10% of it to give during the children's offering at church.

Prior to Dave, we would just hand Nathan $1 every week and send him off and that was that, but it's really teaching him more about his faith and being responsible if he gives from his own money than us giving him money just to give him money. It's been a little harder of a lesson to explain to him why he's giving less money than he was before, but when we walk into his class and he drops his $.25 in the box (10% of his $5 is $.50, or $.25 per week), I take that time to reaffirm to him that he's tithing from HIS money and I am very proud of him for doing so.

Now as a Christian parent, you can imagine how much my heart swells with love and joy when I can hear Nathan talk about this kind of stuff and especially that I know he really GETS it. But, I think that I have a very, very close second moment that ranks right on up as of last night.

Nathan was standing by me as I was doing dishes and told me he wants to open his own savings account! He's pretty good at saving money on his own for things that he wants like Nintendo DS games, or to buy books from the school book orders, but he recognizes that he wants to save for some bigger things (like Guitar Hero) and that a bank account could help him. So I am really going to try and find time in the next week to take him up to the credit union and do this with him.