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On Sundays, if we're not too rushed, each girl is encouraged to take out a coin from her church box and drop it in the collection basket. She can take out a second coin from her church box and drop it in the poor box after Mass.
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Once a month we visit our bank (credit union actually) where the girls each have their very own account. If they deposit $10 at a time, the bank gives a special coin they can save up to "buy" prizes from the bank's store. Now, it's rather hard to accumulate $10 once a year, let alone the several needed to gather enough special coins to buy a prize, when you only receive .40-.60 a week and maybe put less than .20 a month in your bank at home. So my husband and I agreed to give our girls an incentive: with nothing else worthwhile to spend their store money on anyways (only candy and toys), if they choose to use enough "store" money in addition to their "bank" money to equal at least $2 on the day we visit the bank, we will contribute the remainder to bring their deposit up to the $10 needed to receive the special coin.
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The remaining money from their allowances and special birthday/Christmas gifts has been used on trivial toys, candy, and once in treating Mama and Sister to special drinks at a local coffee shop. Both girls are a long ways from understanding the value of money, but this system has been an excellent first step in the process. And a bonus for me: much less begging for me to buy this or that item every time we enter a store. A bonus for my husband: he discovered that multiplying his age by .10 gave him more free-spending money than we were previously budgeting for the adults in our family. So he switched us to the [.10 x current age] plan also. Although he (and I) doesn't subtract 10% each week for tithe, he's already tithed off the whole income (not just the allowance portion), and the children's tithe is really just for training purposes since the money we give them has also already been tithed off of.
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Linked with Works for Me Wednesday, Fellowship Fridays, Modest Monday
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