One of the Webelos badge requirements is for the boys to make a 30 day budget and then actually track expenses for 7 days. I haven't been good about allowances lately (mostly because they haven't been good about chores lately.) I decided our vacation to Yellowstone was a perfect opportunity to give them some money and let them budget it.
I gave them 3 envelopes. One with $50 cash for food, one with $10 for wetsuit, and one with $20 for spending money. I told them that there would be 9 meals that we would eat out and they would have to decide how much to spend at each meal. They asked if they could keep whatever money was leftover in their envelopes. I agreed.
First lunch out was at BYU Idaho dining hall. Nathan decided to pack celery and grapes that were leftover from the car ride. Zach shared some Chinese food with Erin so he only spent about $3. That night we ate dinner back on campus and we got an entire pizza for $5. The boys each contributed $1. That night for FHE, we went to see a movie. The boys didn't want to go because they knew they would have to pay. But we didn't give them a choice. They were really excited to find out it was dollar night for kids. So they splurged and got a kids treat pack for $3.25 each.
The next day we went White Water Rafting. The wetsuits were required because of the water and air temperature that day and so the company didn't charge us for the wetsuits. The boys were mad when I took the $10 back from their budget. That evening we went to dinner at a "sit down restaurant." The kid meals were $5 each. They weren't happy about it but they had no other choice since we didn't have food in the car for them to eat. They each ordered one. The bad news came when I told them they each owed the server a $1 tip. They tried every which way to get out of it. We had agreed before dinner to go out for ice cream after dinner. The boys usually try to get us to buy Dairy Queen for them. But since they were paying, they asked if we could get $1 cones at McDonalds instead. They changed their minds and didn't want any ice cream after paying the mandatory tip. We were all laughing. But Mario and I didn't budge. We didn't pay for anything except the white water rafting and an ice cream sandwich at Yellowstone that they didn't ask for but I decided to give them one as a treat.
The week continued with the boys being very frugal. Nathan ate more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches than I can count. Zachary ate as cheaply as possible wherever we went. We went back to the same "sit down restaurant" on the way home and the boys decided to split a meal this time so they could split the tip too. They got a lot of questions from different people when they were getting money out of their envelopes. We would tell people they were on a budget. The boys hated it, but everyone thought it was a great idea. By the end of the week, Nate had only spent $21 of his $70. Zach had only spent $26 of $70. They wouldn't even spend $2.25 on hot chocolate on a cold rainy morning.
Mario and I learned a valuable lesson from this experience. Our children have no issues spending our money and they ask for everything! But when we give them money and tell them we aren't giving them anymore when it runs out, they are very frugal. It was an enjoyable week of not having them ask me for anything and everything in sight. They are still bitter that I took the wetsuit money back.
Zach came home and immediately used his money to buy a new DS game. Nate is saving his for now. I told Mario that maybe we should give Eric a budget for his senior year including college application fees, Senior pics, prom, homecoming, class trip etc and let him decide how much he wants to spend on each. Maybe he would be more frugal too. He's already pretty good at budgeting but I bet he could improve too.
The twins are glad to be back home and they are happy that when we go out to lunch or dinner, they aren't expected to pull out their cash envelopes anymore. But it worked so well, I'm tempted to do it all the time.
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