I have an idea for giving my 11 year old son some practice with money that I wanted some feedback on. I'm honestly not sure if it's kooky or not.
First some context:
Allowance, payment for chores etc. hasn't been something we've typically done in our family--it just never really seemed to make sense in our situation. We've evolved to our 11 year old mainly just doing chores etc. because we ask him and he seems to get plenty of money for wants from relatives at holidays that he often saves up for a big purchase. And our 3 year old isn't old enough to care yet. Once in awhile when I know our 11 year old is saving up for something and doesn't have quite enough I'll think up odd jobs that I would pay him for (e.g., clear up the brush in the yard, build a compost container). He doesn't really need regular "fun" money because we really don't do all that many things where we're inclined to spend any. For the odd birthday party or school trip cost we just pay for it and most of our excursions don't involve money (we live in the D.C. area where museums are free and there are a lot of nature areas around for biking/hiking). He doesn't play extra-curricular sports and instrument instruction is provided by our public schools. He tends to amuse himself on his own or with friends on a variety of ambitious projects that involve lots of creative activity and planning (e.g. fort building, various entrepreneurial schemes that don't ever really come to fruition, writing plays etc.) but no extra outlays of cash. He just hangs out and plays in the summer--no camps and the like. We go camping as a family. We have hand me down avenues and gifts from relatives so clothes are not a common purchase. We do talk about money--like talking him through the thought process on refinancing our house, we have talked about compound growth and how it applies to investments and debt (he likes math so these things are fun to him). He's vaguely proud of our non-conformist life (we lived without a car for over a decade, we make our own bread, grow organic vegetables in our front yard etc.) though as he enters adolescence in a fairly affluent more conservative neighborhood than he's used to (we moved here for work) I wonder if that will change.
So here's my thinking:
As it stands, I feel he has a conceptual understanding of money, we serve as reasonable models, but not a lot of hands on regular practice with budgeting it. Introducing allowance just doesn't seem to fit with the flow of our family. BUT I did get this weird idea, that I can't decide if it's ridiculous. As he's starting to have ravenous pre-adolescent eating/growth, I'm noticing his food choices cost more than ours. For instance, whereas we'll eat oatmeal for breakfast, he prefers a dry cereal and milk. But he can finish off a large box of cereal and a gallon of milk in 2 breakfasts (he's in the 99th percentile for height and the 25th percentile for weight and eats more than any of his friends). And this extends to snack choices, what he packs in his lunch etc. And I hate going out grocery shopping (besides the fact both my husband and I have full-time jobs so it's hard to go so often) and it becomes a lot to carry etc.
One option would be for me to declare that I'm just buying oatmeal, fruit and eggs and those are the breakfast choices. But I was thinking that I could also designate a budget for him for breakfast and lunch where I have established the cost of the various choices. His budget would allow him to choose for some days of cereal/milk, but he could also opt for choosing oatmeal more often and pocketing the surplus. When I first thought of it, it seemed sensible. But then I started wondering if was kooky and overly complicated... So what do you think?