One of the many reasons that I am such a cheapskate is that I think it is important for my kid to learn thrifty skills. He is in high school and gets an allowance that is to cover his school lunches, his train fare, and his spending money; I nearly cried tears of joy when he started brown-bagging lunch so that he would have money to buy some sports equipment that he wanted.
Talk to your kids about what you do, not in a whiny way, but rather in the context of how you are spending less on one thing so that you have more of another. “I’m taking my lunch to work because our heating bills are going up and I want to keep the house comfortable more than I want to eat in the cafeteria,” isn’t a whine, it’s a responsible choice.
Likewise, my child has never complained about having secondhand clothes or sports gear, in large part because my husband and I have secondhand clothes and sports gear. Saying “look at these awesome cross-country skis your dad got me for Christmas at Play It Again Sports” shows that I think secondhand goods have value (and they are awesome skis; too bad I don’t get to use them enough). That rubs off on kids.
When our choices support fun things, I’m especially happy to talk about them. “I’m perfectly happy having one car if it means we can take a nice vacation every year” is an example of a tradeoff that benefits us.
Finally, kids need to see the relationship between work and money. If your kid will absolutely die without the latest phone, it’s okay to say, “it would take me three full days of work so that you can have that phone, and I’d rather not do that just so you can have an upgrade before the contract is up, but I’ll make sure to come to your funeral.” You are the parent, after all.
March 8 – March 13 is Women’s Money Week 2013, and every day, a bunch of bloggers – including me – are writing about different issues affecting women and their money. I’m cross-posting this on Chicago on the Cheap as well.
