Paper Money and Hard Lessons

Kaylin has been begging me lately for paper money. I'm not exactly sure what brought this on but after some thought I decided to roll with it. I decided to put together a chore chart for her. It's never too early to have a to-do list, right? Well - right now the chart consists of only three things. The list will grow with her. She is responsible for feeding her fish, making her bed, and picking up all toys, clothes, clutter she gets out in a day's time. After she marks off her chores I give her a dime. If she successfully gets 7 dimes in a row, she can trade them in for paper money ($1). Yes, I realize she gets a profit of 30 cents but breaking down a dollar into seven days would have been more of a headache for me. Besides it gives her extra incentive to complete all seven days. The reality is I'm not sure whom the chart benefits more - her or me. It helps me to be more disciplined in reminding/teaching her to help around the house.

Well - Sunday I gave her her first paper money. I explained her options. We needed to share with God first. Then she could either spend or save. She wanted to spend. I told her we could go to the dollar store and find something. But first we made a trip to Target. And this is where she learned a hard lesson - you can't buy much for a dollar. Now Target does have it's small little dollar section at the front of the store but she didn't find anything that tripped her fancy. Then she wanted to go back to the toy section. Poor girl! Everytime she found something she might like I had to break it to her. She couldn't afford it. Sure there were a couple of items that were around the $2.50-$3.50 range. I technically could have made up the difference but what kind of lesson would I have been teaching her? So I stuck with the dollar price tag. I again explained she could buy something small with a little bit of money or save it and buy something bigger. She was intent on spending this dollar so off we went to the dollar store. How do you teach a child not to buy something just because you can afford it but buy it becuase you actually want it. I felt like she was getting desperate just to buy something. In the end - we went to Target and two dollar stores before she settled on a princess wand. I'm hoping next week I can talk her into saving the dollar.