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"I have a new tactic for teaching my kids the value of money. I wanted to share it with you because in today&amp;#039;s generation of materialism, it is difficult to find anything that really works well. It started with my ten-year-old son, Matthew. He received a lot of money from friends and relatives for his birthday. Being such a sensible child, he agreed to put half of it into savings and keep the rest to spend as he wished. He is a thoughtful and intelligent boy; he is the least impulsive of my three kids and he will spend a lot of time pondering about what to spend his money on. He&amp;#039;s the kid that will spend two hours in the toy store thinking and rethinking his purchases. So off to the toy store we went to spend his $80. Matthew is really into action figures. First it was Power Rangers, then it was Star Wars and now it wrestling. For his birthday we made a Wrestlemania cake and he got a lot of figures for his collection, but he still wanted more. He knew right where the aisle was that carried his treasures and made a bee-line for them. Then came reality. Those figures are between $17 and $25 each. He knew that even if he got the least expensive ones, he could only get four at the most. He even said so after he made the calculation in his head. I watched the wheels turn in that intense mind of his and about five minutes later, he said, &amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s look around.&amp;quot; We weaved in and out of aisles that contained games, Lego&amp;#039;s, play guns and more. Nothing seemed special enough for him to part with his money. Finally, we hit the clearance aisle. Wouldn&amp;#039;t you know it, there was a pile of wrestling action figures with cracked packaging, sitting in a bin with red marker across the prices. They were $5 each. While they were &amp;quot;old&amp;quot; figures (last year&amp;#039;s models), they were new to him and he had none of them. &amp;quot;Mom,&amp;quot; he said excitedly. &amp;quot;I can get three of these guys for the cost of one of the other ones!&amp;quot; Bingo. We filled the cart to the brim. He recognized a bargain when he saw one. An hour later we were in line with seven new wrestlers, a water gun taller than him, and a wiffle ball set. Know what? He still had twenty dollars left over. So here&amp;#039;s the lesson. If one of the kids wants say, a $60 pair of jeans from their favorite store, I tell them for that same money, they could have two pairs of jeans off the sale rack and two t-shirts from the same store. When they ask for a pricey snack at the grocery store, I pick up one less expensive and tell them that they could have two of those instead of one of the other. It&amp;#039;s catching on and I&amp;#039;m happy. What tactics do you use to teach your kids about money? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/life/a42903/teaching-moments-9222/>