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Children_and_Money

Children_and_Money
Children_and_Money

Finding a way of teaching children to appreciate the value of money can be a problem. Yet the solution, David Owen suggests, is simple -- just open a bank. Easier said than done? Well, it turns out to be not quite so difficult as it sounds, as you'll discover in reading about the First National Bank of Dave.

Children and Money

David Owen

Parents who decide that the time has come to teach their children about money usually begin by opening savings accounts. The kids are attracted at first by the notion that a bank will pay them for doing nothing, but their enthusiasm disappears when they realize that the interest rate is tiny and, furthermore, their parents don't intend to give them access to their principal. To a kid, a savings account is just a black hole that swallows birthday checks.

Kid: "Grandma gave me twenty-five dollars!"

Parent: "How nice. We'll put that check straight into your savings account."

Kid: "But she gave it to me! I want it!"

Parent: "Oh, it will still be yours. You just have to keep it in the bank so that it can grow."

Kid (suspicious) : "What do you mean by 'grow'?"

Parent: "Well, if you leave your twenty-five dollars in the bank for just one year, the bank will pay you seventy-five cents. And if you leave all of that in the bank for just one more year, the bank will give you another seventy-five cents plus two and a half more cents besides. That's called compound interest. It will help you go to college."

The main defect in such saving schemes is that there's nothing in them for the kids. College is a thousand years away, and they probably think they'd just as soon stay home anyway. Indeed, the true purpose of such plans is usually not to promote saving but to prevent consumption. Appalled by what their children spend on candy

and video games (or, rather, appalled by the degree to which their children's overspending seems to mimic their own), parents devise ways to lock up their children's resources. Not surprisingly, kids quickly decide that large sums aren't real money and that all cash should either be spent immediately or hidden in a drawer.

To avoid this problem with my two children, I started my own bank. It's called the First National Bank of Dave. I set up an account for each child, using the same computer program I use to keep track of my checkbook. Because I wanted my kids' deposits to grow at a pace that would hold their attention, I offered an attractive interest rate-five per cent a month. Compounded, that works out to an annual rate of more than 70 per cent. (No, I don't accept deposits from strangers.) Allowances are deposited automatically on the first day of each month. The kids can make other deposits, or withdrawals, whenever they like.

The Bank of Dave, which has been in operation four years, instantly turned both my children into keen savers. My son still comes to me with change he has found on the floor of the car, saying, "And credit this today." Both kids' accounts grew so fast that after two years I had to roll back my monthly interest rate to three per cent. The kids protested when I announced the change, but they nodded solemnly when I explained that the law of supply and demand applies even to the supply of money. The kids help me calculate their interest -- a useful lesson in averaging and percentages.

I give them unlimited access to their funds, no questions asked, and I provide printed statements on demand.

The high rate of interest is not the only attractive feature of the Bank of Dave. Equally important from the kids' point of view is that their accounts belong to them. When they save, they harvest the benefit; when they want to spend, they don't need permission. Children who have no control over their own funds have no incentive not to beg for money and then spend every dollar that comes into their hands.

The way to help children become rational consumers is to give them more control, not less. Before we go on vacation, I'll usually give my kids an extra twenty bucks or so, which I deposit in their accounts. I tell them that they can spend the extra money on a T-shirt, save it, spend it before we leave, or do anything else they want with it -- but that while we are on vacation, they won't receive any additional pocket money from me (except in the form of communal purchases considered by custom to be vacation entitlements, such as candy, ice cream, movie tickets, and so on). Because

any money they spend starts out as theirs, not mine, they think twice before throwing it away. In a souvenir store on Martha's Vineyard a couple of summers ago my son quietly studied the unpromising merchandise while a friend of his loudly cajoled his parents into paying five dollars for a toy gun, which fell apart almost before we got back to the car. My son ended up spending thirty-three cents for an unopened geode, which he later cracked open by hitting it with a hammer -- a good value, it seemed to me. If he had been spending my money instead of his, he undoubtedly would have wanted a toy gun instead.

"Children are instinctive capitalists." If given enough leeway, they quickly become shrewd managers of their own finances. When parents fail in their efforts at financial education, it's usually because for reasons of their own they have managed to make saving seem painful and dull. Money is fun, and it's almost entirely self-explanatory. The only way to teach kids to adopt a long-term perspective is to give them a short-term incentive for doing so.

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