The Legend of the Ledger

I am charmed by a gaggle of nieces and nephews, all under the age of 14. Every now and then, I am tickled by their life experiences with money and realize what I still need to clarify for families and kids. 

In this story, the superstars are likely Sandy and Nick, who started their kids early earning, saving, giving, and spending, all tracked in personal ledgers. Imagine a school-sized notebook in which little hands have carefully recorded line after line of money that has in (allowance, $20 birthday cash from Auntie) and money that went out ($5 at church for giving, $12 put in savings at the bank, $8 to Amazon for a Funko Pop Mandalorian). Periodically, mom or dad reviewed the individual ledgers, and the kids learned to keep a hawk-eye watch on their bottom line. 

If personal spending had to occur (like those soccer cleats that were perceived to be better than the pair mom had bought), kids knew to check their personal ledger to see if they had the money and then decide if they wanted to spend it. This system has two big benefits: 1) Sandy and Nick don’t have to worry about maintaining cash in the house to keep the personal kids' accounts flush and accurate, and 2) Kids are learning how to track and monitor their own funds. After this, bank statements will be a breeze. 

But sometimes, not everything, even in the best setups, gets perfectly translated for kids. 

Tuesday was Scholastic Book Day for the 10-year-old, and he had $77 dollars on his ledger—plenty for a few new books, especially that soccer book that featured some players doing trick moves. So the 10-year-old took his ledger to school, walked through the book fair, approached the checkout table with his books of choice, and handed them his ledger. 

The woman on the other side of the table with the metal coin box looked perplexed. 

“What’s this?”

“That’s my ledger. [opening it] You see, I have over $77. Just take off the $12 for the books. Then I’ll have $65.”

Silence from the cashier.

“Like my mom does for my Amazon purchases.”

“Uh . . “

“Do you know what Amazon is?”

“Uh, yeah... I'm familiar with Amazon. This is not Amazon. And we can’t . . . really do the ledger thing. You have to go home and get some real money or a check from your parents.”

Which is how the story ended. The nephew went home with his ledger, his $77 balance, and no new books, including the cool one with the cool soccer moves. 

I know what you’re thinking. A travesty. I mean, come on, soccer moves people! Soccer moves!

All ended well as my sister was able to provide an actual form of currency before the actual book fair came to an end. 

But I think, cute story aside, there’s a real lesson here for the grown-ups. I imagine most reading this find amusement in a kiddo trying to buy books with his personal ledger. But for a kid in the 21st century, how is that different than waving a plastic card in front of a little machine or holding up a phone to be scanned? Bottom line, kids rarely see currency in action in the form of paper dollars and coins. And so it’s no longer enough to practice handing a lady $12 for new books, thinking we’re teaching kids about money. The goal is to teach kids the system of money, how it moves between parties, and how it can increase or decrease in your care.