The Value of a Dollar

I remember the first time my daughter saw me use an ATM.  She stared in wonder as the machine just gave me money for pushing a few buttons.  It was a miracle.

She thought we should go on a spending spree and then head back to the ATM when we needed more.

A couple of hundred small child questions later and I had assured her that the money coming from the ATM was money I had put in there first.

I was fortunate in getting my daughter interested in reading in that she was an avid wrestling fan.  Mind you this was back in the day when it was still a family event brought mainstream by the likes of Hulk Hogan.

One day while we were in a store, my daughter noticed that there was a wrestling magazine on the shelf.  As usual with a small pre-school child, she asked me to buy it for her.  I gave her a look of non-belief and said “You are going to read that?  Not just look at the pictures?”  She assured she would.  I told her I would test her later to see if she had.  So I bought the magazine, figuring that it was a shot, but if it got her to learn how to read, and expand her comprehension, it’s all good.

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To my surprise, she was a little trooper and dug into figuring out the words in the magazine.

Of course you’re wondering what this has to do with teaching a child the value of a dollar?

Well, there were many more trips to the store that my daughter accompanied me on, and every month there was a new issue of that wrestling magazine.

About this time I started handing out chores, and an allowance.  You have these four chores to do every day.  If you do them, at the end of the week I will give you one dollar for each.  So on Friday, if you’ve done your chores, you will get four dollars.

As luck would have it, she accompanied me to the store and there was not just one new wrestling magazine, but two new magazines.

She asked me if I would get them both for her.  I looked at her and said “You’ve earned four dollars this week, you have enough money to buy both of them yourself.  If you want to spend your money on that.  But then you will have to wait until next week until you have money again.”

You should have seen her eyes.  Her little brain was processing this at break-neck speed and she said -

“…Oh…”

After a little while she said “I don’t know what to do?”

“It’s up to you,” I said, “you can buy both now if you want.  But you won’t have your four dollars anymore.”

“…Oh…” she said.

I told her “Well…you could buy one today, and still have half your money left.  If you save that until next week, next Friday, if you do your chores, you will have six dollars instead of four.”

So she decided which magazine she wanted, and kept half her money until the next week.  Having provided the situation where she could learn this for herself made the talk about putting a little bit of her money away each time much easier.  And it was an even bigger delight when she learned that if she saved the money, and put it in a savings account, they would pay her to let them put her money to work.

My daughter isn’t little anymore, but that lesson she learned for herself has influenced her life in positive ways that even I didn’t think of, and that sometimes I think she takes for granted.  But that’s ok, I’ll be grateful for her in this case.

Some people will say it’s nonsense, but learning the value of a dollar can change a persons life.  Learning that you can spend all you have, or decide not to, does change a persons life.  Knowing you have that kind of power, the power to make that choice, will determine whether or not success flows to you like moths to a flame or runs from you like oil on water.