Money Matters

Spenders or Savers?  We'll see!

(Check out Grace's self-makeover)

As I've mentioned in other posts, one of our favorite stories is a series called the All-of-a-Kind Family.  It's about a poor Jewish family living in NYC in the early twentieth century.  They have five girls and the oldest is Ella--which is where we got Ella's name though I'm surprised it made it all the way to her.  It's been in the mix for awhile.  Anyway, one of the things about this family's life is that the girls come home from school to eat lunch each day and after lunch, receive one penny.  They take their pennies to the candy store and buy half a penny of this and half a penny of that.  Our girls have listened to the books many times and one day not too long ago, they asked us if they could get a penny a day too.  Chris and I looked at each other and--with much self-control--didn't laugh.  Instead, we decided to give them a quarter a day at dinner.  To get their quarters, they have to do their chores cheerfully and answer one question about something we're studying--usually a catechism question.  They always get more than one chance to answer correctly and can even phone a sister if necessary.

At about the same time we started this, Grandma Doyle gave the girls dollars for Valentine's Day.  We had dollars and quarters laying around on the kitchen counter and I decided that we needed banks.  So I raided Mia's store stash and came up with three oatmeal containers (we eat a lot of oatmeal).  I got out my scrapbooking paper, glue sticks and lots of stickers and we spent an afternoon decorating the banks.  I cut a slit in each lid and we were in business.  The next night, we were getting the girls ready for bed and couldn't find Harriet.  I looked everywhere--under beds, under couches--I even scoured the car.  No Harriet.  Sophie went to sleep without her.  The next day, when I got the banks down for the daily deposit, I found Harriet curled up in Sophie's bank!  The perfect place for her most valuable possession!