The Happy Rock And The Carnival Ride – Financial Childhood Lessons
Below is a post describing a fun frugal experience from my childhood written by The Happy Boulderette(The Happy Rock’s Mom). The story itself is neat, but what makes it even more interesting is the striking similarity it has to a post that I wrote about Teaching The Happy Pebble about the value of a dollar. It is great to see that lessons learned as a child are still bearing fruit almost 30 years later. You can change your family tree.
The Happy Boulderette has 2$ in her pocket and the local carnival is set up in the supermarket parking lot around the corner. She shares this info with The Happy Rock(age 6) – he is super excited and they attend the carnival that evening.
Quality time was spent between mom and son as they walked around and laughed and talked about how to spend their 2$. The process was long and they eventually decided to ride one particular amusement ride prior to heading home. Woohoo!!! It sure was fun!!!
Much later in life, the Happy Boulderette is pondering years back and realizes that many valuable lessons were taught that evening. Many of them were definitely financially related. At the time, she hadn’t even known she was having an impact on her son’s life.
Our children’s watchful eyes are upon us and financial lessons are being learned even when they are not intentional.
This is a valuable lesson we all should take on board. Knowing you have a financial limit and spending time ensuring you spend wisely makes you feel great when you do make your choice and it allows you to actually look forward to getting something when you can afford it.