For years, we always used cash envelopes for most of our purchases. It worked well to help us stick with our budget, but we slowly moved over to just using our debit cards and tracking everything through YouNeedABudget.
It has worked well, until the other day when I realized it wasn’t working as well as I had thought.
Let me tell you about it…
You see, we’ve been teaching Kierstyn (our 4-year-old) about money. We’ve been talking about how the way to pay for things is to earn money. We’ve been giving her opportunities to do extra chores in order to earn money for things she wants to buy.
Well, there was something she wanted to buy and she didn’t have enough money for it. I told her she could do some more chores to earn the money and she replied, “Or you could just use your card to buy it.”
I realized that she has no concept that my debit card is linked to our bank account which has the actual cash in it. I tried to explain this to her, but I could tell it wasn’t making a lot of sense.
She just thinks that swiping a plastic card means you don’t have to use money to pay for something. And that a plastic card is access to unlimited ability to buy things.
I’m thinking maybe it’s time to go back to cash envelopes for awhile so my younger kids see me using real cash like my older kids did? Or at least make sure I’m pulling out cash to use regularly and having these conversations with the younger kids about how cash, banks, debit cards, and money works.
This story of Kierstyn is why it’s so important that we have conversations with our kids about money as early as possible. It’s also a good reminder that the way we interact with money impacts our kids and how they will view and manage money in the future.
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My kids are almost exactly the ages of your older kids – two girls and a boy just like yours. We used a lot of cash for things when they were little too, but have also started to use debit cards as the years go by. I can definitely see, though, how if we had younger children, they wouldn’t have a visual of cash as much.
Yes! Our older kids use debit cards themselves a lot, too! But they do understand how it works since they put their own money into their bank account to fund the card. 🙂
Important insight. Keep up the excellent insight.
Thanks so much!
Once again, your own archives prove your lies. How many times did you write about only using debit cards at the gas station because you didn’t want to take 3 young kids out of the van and pay inside with cash? You seem to have forgotten how you actually lived 10, 15, 20 years ago. You don’t seem to remember anything you wrote. Good thing the internet archive is forever and your lies can be disproved. You freely admitted to using debit cards at aldi, the gas station, for your business, and all travel expenses. Why can’t you ever be honest? It is crazy to lie about things that your own writing contradictions. Go read the post about kaitlynn cutting up your business debit card at age 3.
Yes, as you mentioned, we’ve always had debit cards (we used them for gas and online purchases and much of our travel in the early years) but for most everything else, we used cash for years. That’s why I mentioned “most” purchases in the post because there was the exception for a few things that we used debit cards for. But for years, I rarely used anything but cash for most purchases, and then we slowly made the switch to debit cards and YouNeedaBudget, as I have also talked about.
It’s so important for me to be 100% honest and trustworthy and that’s why I always appreciate if people let me know that they think I’m forgetting something or sharing something that doesn’t make sense or seem to line up (because I absolutely do forget some things — like the time recently when I thought I had made granola bars for the first time and then someone reminded me I had attempted it years ago! I had to laugh that I totally forgot that and someone online remembered). I’m stumped on this one because I can’t think of any posts I’ve written that would contradict this post. If you have any links to posts that contradict what I’ve said in this post, I would love for you to email them to me so I can try to understand what you are referring to: [email protected] Thank you so much!
One of my big hopes is to always inspire and encourage in all I do in my real-life and online. It seems like this post and my blog in general is not inspiring or encouraging you and so I’m going to gently encourage you to stop reading here as it seems like it is upsetting you. I don’t want you to be visiting a site that is causing you to feel triggered and angry. I also want you to know I just stopped and prayed for you to feel so loved and seen and valued in your real life. I’ve found that often people who are leaving comments such as yours are struggling in their real-life and could use some extra prayer. If you are struggling with something specific and would love for me to pray for you, please email me as I would be honored to do so. May you be abundantly blessed today and if you visit here again, I pray that you will feel inspired and encouraged instead of frustrated and angry.
I just wanted you to know – that was such a gracious and kind response, and a reminder to me to pray for others!
Thank you for your encouragement!