Responsibility and Love

This is a strange post about some of the things I am trying to teach my children.

Responsibility and Value..... Since the day our children were born we have been trying to teach our children the value of a dollar. Where does money come from,where does it go and is there an end to it? Kids today think there is a never ending supply of money, they think just charge it, or drive up to the bank and put your card in that machine at the bank and they will give you more.Today I was working on my taxes. So I put my files in the middle of the living room floor. I had the girls help me sort the statements by month and then we filled in a chart of what each utility cost. The girls were astounded about what we paid for gas, electricity, phones ie. It was a great opportunity for me to teach them where we spend our money and to get some much needed help as the days are counting down to April 15th.

My middle daughter kept saying don't you have "people" for this and when I get older I will have "people" for this. I had to tell her that even with "people" that you have to be responsible and record monthly receipts . As you can tell they were not impressed.

But it was a great teaching moment.

Love... Yesterday while we were at Wal-Mart there was a man in front of us that had a whole cart of food. He started to get nervous and I could tell that he was counting each penny as it was tallied. At $125 , he said I think I have 130. The cashier rang up $135 and he was frantic. I slipped the cashier $5 and she put it on his bill , he thanked me but started putting a few things back, the first being a case of pop.When she actually rang up his food stamps he really only had $127. At this point my girls were wide eyed , it was a great opportunity to talk about what he had in his cart and what would be good choices if this were the last $127 you had for the rest of the month.
It was also a great opportunity to talk about showing others love and giving when you can.
I need to be teaching my kids to be responsible with their money, to think about what they purchase, do they need the items and to look around for those who may need help.
We don't know what tomorrow will hold for any of us but we need to make the most of every opportunity, especially the time we have to teach our kids.
What are some things you have been teaching your kids? I would love to hear.