Spend. Save. Share.

It has come up in conversation a few times now with friends about how we help Olivia learn about money.  A few years ago, we got Olivia started with these piggy bank jars:

Simple mason jars decorated with scrapbook paper, stickers, and covered in contact paper.

Pat cut holes in the lids and sanded them a lot so there weren't any sharp edges.

We got the Spend Save Share idea from Dave Ramsey, one of Pat's idols.  :)  The idea is simply to make sure money gets divided up in the three areas, so it isn't always getting spent right away.  The other two areas are very important too.

While concepts of money aren't really understood by a two year old, we've started simple.  We simply toss spare change that gets accumulated around the house into the jars, or we hand it to her to put in the jars.  We sit down with her occasionally to dump them out and go over identifying the different coins and the values of each.  It's cute overhearing Pat talk to Olivia when putting coins in the jars because he will ALWAYS say: "Now remember Olivia, you always put more money in the SAVE jar." 
We've collected enough a few times now that we have taken the coins to the bank to send them through the coin counter.  Recently we put all the money to use. 

Spend.
When we went to Nickelodeon Universe for Olivia's 4th birthday, I spotted some fun items in a store I thought Olivia would like.  She has always been a fan of the "Wonder Pets", and I haven't seen toys of that kind anywhere else.  On our trip to the MOA for Henry's birthday, we brought her spending money along and took her into that store.  We compared prices of items, and looked at the options.  I'm guilty of kind of nudging her towards some items I thought she'd really enjoy, but when she saw these she really wanted them. She's a big fan of the Wonder Pets, and legos, so it's a good fit for her.  She paid for them proudly with her cash.  (I don't think the cashier knew what to do since no one ever pays with cash anymore!)

Save.
We take care of this one for her.  We have a college plan that we put it in.  She'll learn more about it as she gets older.  For now, it's important to us that she learnes that it's important to save.

Share.
A perfect opportunity came up for Olivia to share her money.  During Lent our church/school collects money for Operation Rice Bowl.  I remember doing this as a kid too.  You get a cardboard bowl from school, bring it home to fill with change, and bring it back to school to collect towards the fund.  Olivia was tickled pink to empty her share jar into it and bring it to her preschool, dumping the contents into an ice cream bucket with her friends.  I'm proud of her for being so excited to share her money with others.   We're trying to expose her to different types of donations so she can become aware of the many needs people have, and how blessed we are. 

Eventually we'll start the kids on an allowance.  It's not something we grew up with, but in our reading about teaching kids about money, we feel this would be an important step for them to learn how to manage money in the future.