Life’s little lessons – Teaching teens financial responsibility

Teens grocery shopping on their own.

Do you remember doing story problems in math class? Here’s a story problem that is an analogy of my boys grocery shopping trip.

Don and his brother had $30 to spend on groceries. There were only six items on their list, but they wanted to buy additional snacks. Will the boys have enough money for their snacks?

Well, this is sort of a story problem. I actually sent the boys into the grocery store with a list and a few guidelines:

·         No candy purchases

·         Buy 2-3 boxes of cereal, but don’t spend more than $12 on these items

·         Buy 1 5lb bag of sugar (had to specify the size)

·         One container of strawberries – “not organic or you may not have enough money for all items”

When the boys returned to the car they had several bags and a sense of accomplishment. All the bags were placed in the trunk, except the bread, which was put inside the car so it wouldn’t get smashed. I was impressed.

When I asked about the shopping experience this is what my younger son said.

“I got the strawberries, but a lot of them looked bad. I picked the freshest ones.”

“You could have left the strawberries off the list if they didn’t look good, but at least you looked at them,” I said.
Once we were home and putting the items away I noticed the boys had actually done a pretty good job in their selections. They bought two boxes of cereal instead of three and added a frozen pizza and a bag of pretzels. The total bill was $32.47, so one or both of them added money of their own.

My younger son asked if they could shop on their own more often. My answer…”of course you can.”

I asked each son what he learned about financial responsibility on their shopping trip and here is what they said:

“I learned how to budget money to get everything that you need,” my 13 year old said. “And why do you have to blog about everything?”

When I asked my 16 year old the same question his response was, “I already knew everything.”

My lesson learned was that kids can sometimes do more than we give them credit for.

What are you suggestions for teachings kids or teens financial responsibility?