Shake and Bank!..

My grandfather, "Gangee" would be so proud! Roughly 30 years ago, when I was just a wee little thing, around the age of 8 or 9, my grandfather taught me the value of money. It is a lesson that has stayed with me that I now pass down to my boys.

Gangee bought me a little mailbox piggy bank. He would save all of his silver and give me all of his pennies. He would save for months and months and then around Christmas time, he would come over with his piggy bank and my "penny" bank. We would dump all of our coins on the table and spend hours rolling them in coin wrappers. He only had to do this one or two times before I "caught on" on fast your change quickly adds up to dollars. Thus, a miser was born!

Ever since then, I have saved my change. My husband calls me a Change Nazi. But, it comes in handy. Save your coins all year long and roll them in December, and walah....you have hundereds of dollars in Christmas money. That is how Cody and I come up with our money each year.

So, we wanted to incentivise our boys with money management. We have put them on a Chore Chart and they get paid daily. This really works well for the both of them and we are relieved! They save their money all week long and tithe on Sunday. Then they can take their weekly money and either spend it on a toy or save it in the bank. If they choose to save it, we match them dollar for dollar. Hudson has completely surprised me the most, he always chooses to spend only one dollar and save the rest. Shep, on the other hand, blows it as quickly as we let him loose in the Dollar Tree store. Hilarious!

But, after saving their money for an entire month, we took them to Wells Fargo to open up their first Savings Account. We even gave some money to Katy to open up her own Savings and Checking account too! I am so proud of all of them and I KNOW Gangee would be too.