Teaching financial responsibility to our children can be a real challenge. This week on Home School Heartbeat, listen in as Michael Smith talks with a guest who came up with a novel way to teach his kids about finances.
Mike Smith:
Terry Stokka, our guest today, served 23 years in the Air Force and has four grown children. Terry, thanks for joining us today.
Terry Stokka:
Thank you very much for letting me share this with you.
Mike:
I’ve heard of many different strategies that parents use to teach their children how to manage money wisely—such as giving allowances, opening savings accounts, and paying for chores. You and your wife implemented a very creative idea that I’d never heard of before. Tell us about it.
Terry:
Well, when our children were growing up we thought, how could we have some real-life experience in managing finances? And we used piggy banks when they were young and so we said, why don’t we let them handle our family finances? So what we decided to do was have each child handle the family finances for their last two years of high school. So we put them on a signature card at the bank—the bank thought I was crazy doing that! But we trusted them, so we pressed on with that and each child then paid the bills, wrote tithe checks, balanced the checkbook, and took care of the family finances for two years each. They paid the credit card bills and the mortgage and the utilities, insurance and all of that. And we plan our charitable giving for the year ahead, and so they wrote checks for the tithes and sent in that money each month, and really got a good feel for what it takes to run a household.
Mike:
Thanks, Terry. And until next time, I’m Mike Smith.
