CHANGING MY FAMILY TREE

We started my oldest son Mickey on Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace Jr. program for kids to learn how to handle money. Dave says to let kids operate with envelopes from the age of 4 to about 12 depending on how they are wired. Mickey is a bright boy who gets it early, so we started him in the system on his seventh birthday.


The envelopes he operates with are pretty simple. He has a giving enevlope, a saving envelope and a spending envelope. He is saving for a robot that he wants that costs $179. He is very enthusiastic to save for this robot and he will not spend any money on anything but giving. He puts everything else in the save envelope.


I am thinking about a 401Dad to match his savings for this robot. If he shows the character to save prodigiously, we may match him dollar for dollar. This kid is going to achieve great things in life and I am very supportive of him every day.


My younger son is three, but we plan to have him follow in his brothers' envelope toting footsteps. He is a few years from needing to understand this process, but with some experience under our belts, we will do it even better with the second child.


We opened up a mutual fund for them that will hopefully help them in the future either with college or a first home or emergency fund or something big.