wealth banks and doing NOW

Over the summer, I decided that it was time to start giving an allowance to my kids. I wasn't planning to give them much, and the main purpose I had in mind was to help them learn a little simple money management, as well as have a little spending money so I wouldn't have to get them a treat every time we went anywhere.

To that end, I looked around the internet for divided piggy banks. I needed something for them to keep their money in so it wouldn't get lost and it had to serve the purpose of helping them know what money was for which purpose. There were certainly a lot of commercial options but none seemed quite what I was looking for. I really liked the idea of the moon jar but I needed two of them and it was beyond my meager budget.

In my research, I ran across this article about creating wealth banks, as opposed to piggy banks, as a means for teaching children about money. One key here that was missing completely from every single commercial version was that a wealth bank needs FOUR compartments. (easy peasy to divide a dollar into 4 quarters. not so much in thirds) That was it. This was definitely what I wanted to do, so now I would have to DIY it. Positive that I did not have the items on hand that I would need to do this project, I had nearly decided to put the whole thing off for another day (which usually turns into another year, with me), when I came across this quote:

 Do what you CAN with what you HAVE, NOW 

So I started looking around my house and do you know what I found? I found 2 empty Stephens hot chocolate cans that I had been "saving" for something. "These will be perfect," I thought. But I needed 8 such containers. A little more digging, and I discovered a baking powder can that had only 1 tsp. left. I found a can of cornmeal that was several years past its expiration date. I found an empty couscous container. So now I had five . . . where would I get another three? Just so happened, there was another couscous container and two more hot cocoa ones. So what if they were full, that is what ziploc bags are for, right? I couldn't wait, I was doing NOW. 

And that is how the wealth banks at our house came to be. I cannot claim that we are using them to the utmost but when I remember to give out the allowance, we love dividing it up into each can. And it is nice to have a repository for holiday and gift money as well.  But the real gem that I got from this project of months ago is living on each day when I think to myself "do what you can with what you have and do it NOW."

So instead of putting off that visit for lack of a "get well" gift, I'll bring something from out of my garden. Instead of waiting to pack up those too-small clothes for lack of a plastic bin, I'll gather them into a garbage sack. And so on . . .