Money Wise

I was only little. Less than 10 years old. Dad had some money from his work. So he gave my brother and I some of it - one ringgit for every month of our life. It seemed like a fortune then. He got the money in 50 sen coins and we delighted in putting the coins into our metal moneybox. Since I was older buy a year and a half, I had more coins. What joy to feel the weight and hear the money jingle.

As I grew a little older, still under 10, I found myself spending more than the pocket money I was given. Instead of approaching my parents, I decided to dig the moneyboxes.

I can still remember lying on my parents' bed, pulling away with a hair pin from my Mom's box of curlers. The coins would drop around my ears, sometimes hitting my mouth. Initially I would take only a ringgit. But later the thrill of having money to spend made me take more.

I didn't just take from mine of course. I needed to make sure that my box weighed more than my brother's. So I took from his too.

Then one day, I came home from school to see my parents looking strange. They confronted me with the theft.

I burst into tears and confessed.

In their love for me, their firstborn, they increased my pocket money.

No reprimand. No advice that I recall. Just a quick discussion amongst themselves and then telling me they were sorry that I didn't have enough and that I had to steal. Perhaps they felt they were inexperienced parents.

The end result of that, however, was that I didn't learn to budget. I often spent all I had. That is, until much later in life when I met my accountant husband.

So I resolved to teach with my children to handle money.

From the time they could count, we gave them daily pocket money till they went to secondary school. Then from Junior one to three, we gave them weekly pocket money. When in the upper secondary classes, we gave them monthly allowances. Constantly monitoring what they spent on, teaching them to budget. "Set aside for God first," we'd tell them. From time to time, without their asking, we would increase their allowances.

Recently I just gave my eldest one his own bank pass book. We feel confident they can manage the older ones can manager their money. Certainly more so than I did~