We are starting to teach the boys about money.  We purchased $4 mason jars and stickers from Target after researching how to teach children about money. Researching online, we noticed many families choose to label their three jars Spend, Save, and Gift. We wanted to be more realistic as every two weeks we still get frustrated at how much the government takes from our paychecks.  Well, right now just Alexis' paycheck, but I remember the feeling all too well.  Agreeing that taxation is an important concept to learn, we ultimately decided upon Spend, Save and Tax for the boys' three jars. 

Today we set out to teach the boys about spending and saving.  I took them to the bottle drop, a bottle return store, where several people were lined up to deposit heaps of cans.  Oregon has the highest return rate on cans and bottles at $0.10 per item and we thought this would be a great way for the boys to start earning money.  The boys were super into the return as each can they slid into the mouth of the machine meant more money on their return. They are lucky that their mama drinks way too much soda as they received a large refund today. Of note, this return is a collection over 6 months. For my own sake I needed to make that statement! 

The boys walked away with $25.40.  When doing calculations on a paycheck, we multiply our gross wages by 0.675 to estimate our net gain. This includes taxes, health insurance, medicare, social security and all the other estimates that come out.  We decided that we were not going to be so harsh with the boys; taxing them 20% for overall taxation and 20% will go towards saving. The Spend Jar they can access at any time. The Save Jar can be accessed after a period of time for things they have really wanted and waited for. The Tax Jar monies will be money that they will never see again. Eventually, we plan to move their money over to a real bank, but right now we think the best way for them to begin understanding is through visual representation.

Money Earned Individually - $12.70

Tax Jar - $2.54

Savings Jar - $2.54

Spend Jar - $6.90