Teaching Finances With Mason Jars

I never learned about money. All I heard growing up was you need to go to school so you can get a good job that makes a lot of money so you can buy a house.

That idea is imprinted in my head…that success meant making money and buying a house.

Well, currently, I’ve barely made a dent on my student over the last ten years. I’ve rented since I moved out more than 15 years ago. I have two kids, a wife who knows about as much about money as I do, and I still don’t really know what the f*ck I’m doing.

The only thing I do know is that I don’t want this for my kids.

I was talking to another parent from Kai’s soccer team recently and he told me he pays his own kids a couple bucks to train soccer at home. His reasoning was that when his boys wanted something from the store, he could tell them, “You have your own money now.”

I thought that was really interesting.

Then I came across a TikTok about using three jars to teach young kids about money.

And that’s really all it took.

I hit up Dollar Tree and bought some mason jars. Each kid got a “To Save” jar and a “To Spend” jar, with a third jar going toward a family fund.

Investing $5 on mason jars to help teach my kids a life skill.

50% to spend.
30% to save.
20% to the family fund.

That’s the formula.

I’m not trying to teach them everything about money right now. I just want to give them a habit I never had.

Naturally, their next question was: “So how do I make more money?”

Well kiddos, y’all gonna learn about working too lol. I got into ChatGPT and fed it this prompt: 

Here is the prompt I gave ChatGPT.

We came up with a tracker that laid out their chores, how much they could earn for each one, and a $15 weekly limit. There’s also a spot for them to write down what they did each day.

I printed out a couple copies, threw them on some clipboards and that was it.

Now they don’t have any excuses for not knowing how they can make money lol.

Worked with ChatGPT to create this Weekly Earnings Tracker.

$$$ MoNeY BoYz $$$

I have no idea if this will work or not. I know I’ll still have to be in their ears about doing their chores and earning money. But I just want to start somewhere, because I don’t to wait to need to know everything before I can start teaching them something.

For now, they’re learning that money is earned. That you can spend some of it, save some of it, and put some toward something bigger than themselves.

Hopefully this works…because if it does then World Cup 2030 here we come =)

EXTRA

Want to try it with your kids? Download the Weekly Earnings Tracker HERE.