10-10-10-70

Jiaheng brought home an envelope today and there is a picture of a girl on it. It is a Children's Day appeal for charity to the community chest for the less fortunate.

I asked Jiaheng "How much do you want to donate to help the little girl?" Jiaheng excitedly brought out the container that has the label "Charity" on it... poured out all the coins... counted them... and declared that he will like to donate $2.00. Hmmm.... that will be 20 days worth of savings for Jiaheng.

We started a savings program for Jiaheng earlier on. Every day, Jiaheng will ask us for his $1 allowance. Earlier we prepared 4 containers for him. One labeled "Charity", one labeled "Investment", one labeled "Delayed Gratification", one labeled "Spendings". For the "Charity", "Investment" and "Delayed Gratification" container, Jiaheng will deposit $0.10 into each of them. $0.70 will go into the "Spendings" container.

We taught him how to use the money he saved. For the "Charity" savings, he can find an organisation he likes and donate the money monthly.

For the "Investment" savings, we told him that he is not to touch it. He can put it in a bank and can use the money when he is old enough to handle his money wisely.

For the "Delayed Gratification" savings, we will decide on an event and aim to save up for it. We all decided that we want to save for the Macau-Hong Kong trip end of the year. So Jiaheng will also have his money to spend when we go for the trip. :)

For the "Spendings" savings, he gets to withdraw it every Sunday and spend it on his breakfast with grandparents.

We find that with the 10-10-10-70 savings program, he is more conscious of the value of money. We will only give him the allowance when he asked us for it. If he forgot, which happens quite often... not forgetting that he is only 4 years old... he will have less to spend on Sunday.

It is quite amusing to see him count his "Spendings" savings on Sunday. If there is more money in the container, he will suggest going to a foodcourt to eat. If there is less, he will say "We can only go to a Kopi tiam" Not bad leh... he knows the pricing varies for foodcourt and Kopi tiam. Haha.

When shopping for food, he will shop around for something within his budget. There was once when he chose to only eat toast for breakfast ... cos not enough money saved for the week. And he will be more than happy when he has saved enough for his favourite Japanese food. I enjoy seeing him shop for his food... seeing the little fellow looking at the food signboards and comparing the prices. So cute. :P

While a 4 year old boy is trying his best to learn how to spend his money prudently, there are some adults running into debts and have difficulties managing their money. What an irony! It is definitely important to be mindful of finance in the pursuit of freedom.

I learnt how to do it from an online movie. You can view it at
www.simplyworkathome.org/wealthy (the password is 2476724). Share with me if you learn something useful from the movie too. Cheers!