2019-2020 was an exercise in teaching our elementary school-aged children personal finance, driving independence, and encouraging them to make constrained resource decisions.
Although giving is encouraged throughout the year, the holiday season is an obvious time to use your bounty to benefit others. The children started buying gifts for one another during the 2018 holiday season. They used personal money that they’d been keeping prior to the grand confiscation, and showed a lot of generosity.
As the 2019 year-end holiday season rolled around, we decided to make it a deliberate discussion with budgets and putting thought into what each sibling would be excited to receive. Baby Girl (10) and I started planning in November.
Mom: “How are you going to budget for how much you want to spend on your brother and sister?”
“I’m not going to spend a whole lot of money. Together I want to spend about $25.”
Mom: “That’s a good amount. It’s a little more than half a month’s income. That sounds reasonable. What kind of things do you think they’ll like?”
“I have a book where you dress up kitties in it with stickers. Wee One adored it, so I’d like to find a book like that for her. Or maybe I’ll get her Snoopy related things. She loves Snoopy.”
I was happy to hear that she set a reasonable budget relative to her income and that she focused on what kinds of gifts her siblings would enjoy. She required no nudging and planned to give willingly from the heart.
When we actually started the shopping process, things went further than expected. The budget was completely disregarded. While this was a budget fail, a lot of positivity resulted.
First of all, Baby Girl ended up shopping not just for her two siblings, but she also bought gifts for her four closest girlfriends. She put deep thought into each gift, thinking through what each girl would most enjoy, then working with me to locate the item at a real store or online. Upon getting home, she thoroughly enjoyed wrapping each parcel with paper and ribbons. They sat on her bookshelf in her room for weeks until it was time to present them to each friend. She never said this explicitly, but I sense that she felt pride in her gifts.
Baby Girl ended up draining most of her spending account with eyes wide open. In the months since she made all of her purchases, not once has she expressed any buyer's remorse or other kinds of regret. She simply curtailed any other spending until her coffers had been somewhat replenished.
Little Man (8 1/2) and Wee One (6 1/2) followed very similar paths. They gave generously, staying within the confines of their spending accounts, but using up almost all of each one. All three took great joy in the selection, purchase, wrapping, presenting and [watching the] unwrapping of each item for family and friends.
This is consistent with research that shows that regular giving makes you happier than regular getting. In a 2008 Science Magazine article [1], researchers reported that personal spending was unrelated to happiness, but higher prosocial spending (spending for or on others) was associated with significantly greater happiness.
Furthermore, giving never gets old! Research published in December 2018 [2] documents two experiments measuring how giving and receiving lose their luster over time. The researcher's conclusions: Although happiness from repeated receiving significantly declined, giving did not grow old (happiness did not significantly decline [Experiment 1] or declined at half the rate of equivalent receiving [Experiment 2]).
I am proud that the littles gave so generously last holiday season out of their own abundance. It is easy to spend someone else's money on gifts for others. Though it entailed sacrifice on their part, it didn't seem to slow them down one bit. This year, I would like to see them set a budget in advance and adhere to it, but that budget is welcome to be as large as their hearts choose to make it.
[1] Spending Money on Others Promotes Happiness. Dunn, Aknin, Norton. SCIENCE Magazine, VOL 319, 21 MARCH 2008.
[2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797618814145
Stephanie Brooke Lennon is the author of Family Bank Blueprint, GoldQuest, and What Would Water Do? Simple Strategies for Navigating Life's Obstacles. Her titles are available in Paperback and Kindle on Amazon.com. Follow Stephanie Brooke on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Amazon, and at BrookeLennon.com.
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