Money Matters

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but with school starting it was a little hectic for us.

One of the things we've been doing is to get Abang on a 'timetable' at home. When he completes what he is supposed to do, it gets ticked off on his chart and - this may be a contentious issue - gets some money to put in a special 'tabung'.

I won't go into the details of what he does to earn this money because it's honestly a little embarrassing that I have to pay my son to do these things, but hey, different kids have different issues that they need more 'motivation' on, so if this works for Abang, so be it.

After about a week, he was doing quite well, not getting all 100% ticks but nevertheless still noteworthy. However, by the beginning of the second week he was perhaps a little demotivated so Daddy suggested I take Abang and whatever money he has earned to the supermarket and let him choose whatever he wants to buy with that money.

So on Monday afternoon, I put that suggestion to Abang and he was quite excited about spending "his" money. We counted it up and he had a grand sum of RM6.60 (he actually earned RM5.50; we started him off with RM1 and if he does everything, he'd earn RM1 a day). I asked what he would like to buy and he said "Mamee Monster!" Not my favourite snack, but could be worse, so never mind. Oh yes, and he wanted a bottle of 100 Plus.

Off we went to the nearby Giant with a little pouch full of 50sen and 20sen coins. He was so excited he looked like he was bursting at the seams.

At the snacks isle, we found the jumbo pack of Mamee Monster (consisting of 10 mini-packs) that he wanted.

"Abang, here it is!" I told him excitedly.

"Ok I want the barbeque flavour. That's the nice flavour."

"Sure. Let's see, this pack of 10 is RM3.29," I told him.

"So .. so how many packs can I buy with my money?" He was ready to grab the whole shelf.

"Well, you have RM6.60 so in theory, you can actually buy 2. BUT if you do, you won't have any money leftover for your 100 Plus." I let the lesson sink in a little.

"Oh." He thought about it. "Then I only want 1 Mamee Monster. Because I want to have the 100 Plus also."

"Good choice, Abang! Let's get the 100 Plus."

I showed him that 100 Plus costs Rm1.59 and so his total purchase for that shopping trip was RM4.90, which meant that he had some leftover money.

At home was had a little 'picnic' on the floor where he shared his purchases with Adik and me. Hopefully he will fully absorb the very important lesson about money which is that resources are limited and therefore his will always have to make choices about how to best spend his money.

p/s. He gave a mini-pack to Daddy when he got home from work and yesterday, after we fetched Wan from kampung, as soon as we got in he gave Wan a mini-pack too.