Monopoly

First — a quick announcement! The download icon is being tested right now. We are conducting tests on Windows XP and Vista to make sure everything will go smoothly (sorry this program will not run on a Mac - yet!)

I spent a quiet evening on some financial message board forums and people are facing tough times. One woman is trying to figure out how to keep paying her daughter’s college tuition and she put this last semester’s tuition on a credit card. The debts keep mounting and their budget will soon go under. Some of the community members wondered why the daughter wasn’t trying to help pay her tuition. It got me thinking about some of our own experiences and a visual we used with our own kids.

When we faced a tough time in our financial lives, we took enough Monopoly money to represent our salaries and gathered the kids around the kitchen table. They asked us what was up (the kids were in elementary school at the time) and we told them we wanted them to see how much money we made! Then we told them we wanted them to help us figure out how to spend it!

Their eyes got wide and they enthusiastically agreed to help!

First, we asked if we should continue tithing our money to the Lord. Kids in elementary school are pretty sweet and they felt that yes, we should definitely do that. We showed them how to calculate ten percent and moved that much to the side.

They were ready to spend! But unfortunately there was this little matter of taxes. They were shocked and horrified! Even at their tender ages, they knew Ronald Reagan was the president and they knew that paying that much in taxes was just wrong! But whoosh! Off to the side, it went.

By then, they were catching on. The oldest figured out there was rent to pay (my husband had just graduated from college and there was no house at that time.) We pointed out that “rent” also includes pesky things like lights, water, cable and phone. Whoosh!

Our lovely pile of money was getting very small! After we deducted car insurance, gasoline and food, they started volunteering to mow lawns and sell lemonade!

We encouraged them that their Daddy had a job with a great future and that things would soon improve (and thankfully we were right.) But they did grasp what our salaries represented and they have grown to become decent money managers.