Pocket money

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Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results. John Dewey

Pocket Money…the concept is brought in our homes to bring awareness about value of money. Many times this concept brings the feelings among kids ‘why should I control while my parents are spending freely?” Also not sure on what basis one set up the limit.

Some of the kids who stay at campus, also take care of their expenses. Whatever they spend on their personal needs like snacks, soap, shapmoo, restaurant etc they just write in a note book. Every time they buy they just write and also write cumulative amount. Every time they add they feel a little ‘oh, I have spend so much’.

Slowly they started becoming a bit conscious about their own expenses. When we go to restaurants during weekends, some times some kids will set a limit ‘I can only spend Rs 300, so lets not go to any expensive restaurant’. Sometimes when they buy snacks, they will read the cost and sometimes even selet/reject which are on the expensive side (often more that Rs 30-40).

During one of the shopping trip after a month and next another month no trip was possible for shopping, Kids picked up stuff for their self usage, the bill went upto rs 1000 for some including their toiletries…..I could see how one of them standing in front of the chocolate shelf and thinking twice before picking up, checking rates, questioning ‘do I really need?” One of them commented ‘I think I spent too much’, another came and asked me ‘do you think I have also spent more?”

We never warned them to spend less, their own experience of buying by self, doing accounts of the expenses and paying the cumulative amounts makes them feel ‘Oh! I spent that’.

Infact, sometimes Now I have to convince them to buy without any guilt 🙂


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