Family Budgeting

Budgeting isn't just managing money, but it is managing ourselves. Many people say that they can't do a budget because as a family they have a hard time working together, but working on a budget will help them start working together. When I was little my parents taught us to budget our money. They taught me to always take 10% out for tithing and at least 20% for savings. My parents would match anything we put into savings until we got a real job. This encouraged us to put money into savings.

A question many families face is whether or not to give children allowances. Should parents pay their children for chores they do? Or does that make the child seem like employees? On the other hand it is really bad for children to learn entitlement. How do children learn certain expectations of the family, but reward them for the work they do? 

When I was growing up I remember my parents never gave me an allowance. I had my set of chores I had to do every day and then whatever my parents asked on top of that. If I wanted to make money my parents had a list of chores that I could do that were things that would be nice to have done, but not necessary. One of these chores was picking rocks out of the garden...I hated this chore, but if I wanted money it was one of the chores I could do. As I got older, but not old enough to get a job, activities with my friends or school activities would come up that rock picking just couldn't pay for. My parents would then pick up the slack at the last minute. This helped me to work my hardest to earn the money for it because they wouldn't always pick up the slack, but when they could tell I was really working hard they were more than willing.

I am so grateful for what my parents taught me about budgeting in my early years because it has helped me so much with budgeting my money now that I am away from home living at college.