I’ve always had high dreams for college. Some of which could never be funded by just a scholarship and my parents’ help. Obviously, I’d have to help. But how do you get a child who does his chores every month, and gets only twenty dollars for his work, put some away for college, when that’s not on his immediate mind? The answer is one that my mom thought up, and implemented immediately; giving me mixed feelings.
The idea was that I would always put half of the money that I received (under almost all circumstances) into my bank account, where I could not touch until I had found something that was a big purchase, and had my mother “approve” the purchase of it. And, of course, I could never withdraw all of it at once, always leaving some behind, which would eventually accumulate into my college fund.
While I rather liked the idea of my money building up; after the first six months or so of it, I began to dislike it. I mean, I loved the concept of it: I thought that that was genius! It was the effect it was having on my spending money that I disliked. So, I started asking for more money, whenever my parents and I would discuss my monthly chores, based on the grounds that half was going into savings, and therefore I had less pocket money, and had a reason for needing more. Well, my parents sympathized with me, however said that if I wanted to have more money, that I should do more chores. I didn’t like that, but just went along with the “half into savings” rule.
Since I wasn’t getting anymore money into my pocket, I began to ask for exceptions to the rule, and they were sometimes (though not often) granted. Eventually, my mother (whom was the larger supporter of this rule) started to give me some slack, and the rule began to be used less, and less. When she finally moved out of the family home to work, the rule almost became obsolete. However, she continued to try to keep it alive, much to my distaste.
It’s still that way today.
The main idea that I’d like to transfer through this story; is that if you can get your child to deposit half of his/her money (each time he/she gets some) that you can substantially expand their money in their accounts. For me, I had managed to save six hundred dollars in my bank account in only six months! The only difficulty one may have with this idea, is that it’s difficult sometimes to enforce the rule, however, it’s best to stick to it. If you can do that, it’ll be that much easier when it comes time to send your child off to college or for them to buy a car.