Uh Oh

In an effort to budget and also teach Alanna about money at the same time, we came up with the brilliant idea of going ahead and giving her an allowance.

This would accomplish a couple things:
1) Limit the amount of money Mommy & Daddy are tempted to spend on her.
2) Allow her to see the implications of her choices and let her pick out her own things that she wanted.
3) Help us to teach her about saving and sharing, as she must save a little of her money and give a little of her money every two weeks when she gets her allowance.

So far, it's actually worked pretty well. We don't buy her toys on impulse, she gets to weigh out exactly what she wants to spend her money on and is starting to figure out the concept of having to give something to get something at the store (i.e. things don't just *poof* into the house). We've also been working with the idea of saving the money in the piggy bank and showing her that the ATM is actually a big piggy bank for Mommy & Daddy by bringing her with when we deposit money and don't take any out so that she doesn't think it's just a money machine.

Here's the uh oh...
A couple weeks ago we went to the Renaissance Festival. On the way out the door Alanna piped up, "Spend all Daddy's money!!???"

And this past week, she was upset because she didn't want to go to daycare and blurted out in a hopeful tone, "Go spend money? That be fun!"

Hoh boy...perhaps we should have thought this through a little better....