Silvia's Savings Chart

A few months ago, we decided that Silvia was old enough to get an allowance. We decided on 6 shekels a week which would let her buy small things right away, but also let her buy larger things without having to save for too long a time.

At first we let her save it for a week or two then would go to the toy store and let her buy what she wanted to, which was mostly stickers or things like that. But soon after, we decided that we wanted to teach her the value of savings and delayed gratification (not that we are great at it, but we should teach her better than we do).

We looked around the mall and she decided that the thing she really wanted was a set of 24 colored pencils that came with a drawing pad. It was 30 shekels, which meant that she was going to have to save for 5 weeks. We made up a savings chart so she could see how she was doing, and every week she would fill it in. She'd occasionally spend two or four shekels  on some stickers, but this past week, she finished her savings chart.

Actually, she was four shekels away, but we were by the store last week and there were only two sets left, so I gave her a four shekel bonus.

Debra took her to the store. She brought her money, picked our her pencils, and paid for it herself.

 

I don't know if you can clearly see her holding her change purse (it kind of blends in with her raincoat). Debra tried to explain to the clerk, but he really didn't care, but Silvia, as you can see, was very, very happy. We were also really happy that she worked so hard to save her money.