We think of expense reports as something we hand in to employers in order to get reimbursed. Well, let’s take a twist on this concept to raise our kids’ awareness about 1) exactly how often they ask for money, 2) how frequently they get what they ask for, and 3) what is considered a valid expense.

Number 2 is my favorite because it’s good for them to appreciate what they get rather than be greedy for more. And I mean that in far less a judgmental way than it sounds. I know I don’t always remember to appreciate what I have. Staring at what you’re getting weekly in the form of an expense report is a good wake up call.

So here’s how it works (and there are variations, depending on your situation). But you can use this skeleton. And do first explain how a real world, corporate expense report works and why this is good practice:

In the real world you spend your own money up front and get reimbursed. Because of that, you need to be scrutinizing about each expense. The company always has the option to reject items on your expense report, in which case you’d be stuck with paying the expense. There’s an inherent check and balance system in expense reports.

Then explain that because you are still a dependent without salaried means of fronting the money, we had to take the expense report concept and work it a bit differently to get at the same lesson: building the same good habit of scrutinizing expenses, and getting overall picture of how much is being spent.

Okay, so here’s how to go about it:

1. Either keep an expense report file on the computer, or get your teen a booklet where they can write down every time they ask for money, or spend their own. I recommend a booklet because they can have it on them at all times, and get in the habit of immediately writing things down, versus waiting to be back at a computer.

2. Have them make three columns for each weekly expense report: Money I Asked For/Reason for Expense/Did I Get It or Not yes/no. The great thing about these three columns is that it conditions kids to understand your point of view. They will see very clearly the patterns of what you condone and what you don’t.

3. Have them keep a separate record of expenses they pay for themselves, with whatever allowance or side job money the earn. Two columns on this one: Amount Spent/Reason for Purchase. The idea here is to see if they’re freer with your money or their own.

4. Then have them do one final exercise for each expense report (2 and 3): They should go down the list of expenses that were funded, and ask themselves if it was worth spending the money, or not. Ask them to look for patterns after they’ve finished a month’s worth of weekly expense reports. The key here is to see if they regret any types of purchases consistently.

It may be advisable to start this expense report lesson with only discretionary spending included, as opposed to clothing allowance money or other living expenses. Certainly include living expenses after a while, but it will be interesting to see just the desires first, and how frequently they get what they want, and how frequently they like what they get.

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It could be video games. It could be clothes. That’s what even the conservative marketers claim teens still spend most money on, divided along the expected gender lines. I can hear every teen I know saying I’m stereotyping. But that’s not the point. You know when your teen has an addictive shopping habit. And it’s important to break those habits.

It’s not enough to just lay down tough ground rules, such as telling them they can only spend their allowance or side job money, but you’re not going to keep giving them extra money. That’s treating the symptom, not the disease.

I’ll use clothes shopping for the following habit breaking program because that sort of shopaholism goes far beyond teens; it’s endemic in our culture. But the advice does work for any addictive shopping habit.

The step by step process may sound odd for the first couple of steps, but bear with me, there is a method to it.

1. Tell your fashionista that for two months, no clothes shopping. That includes accessories–hair thingies, purses, etc. Personally, I also strongly recommend including makeup in this. Your teen will be devastated, so hurry up and move on to telling them about #2 and 3.

2. They can spend their money on anything else. Normal allowance or side job money rules apply–for instance, if you insist they save a portion of their money, they must still do that.

3. Reward them for stopping the rituals that feed the habit. Let me explain. A shopaholic will be constantly looking at clothes, in magazines, online, at the mall. The key to breaking the habit is ending the focus. So, for each week that they don’t read fashion magazines, or window shop either online or at the mall, double their allowance. This is a critical step. Be encouraging and kind here. It may be very hard for your teen to do this. Have other magazines around for them to look at; magazine flipping can be a way they’re used to relaxing.

4. Encourage a new physical or artistic activity. Introduce running, yoga, a new team sport. Breaking an old habit is made easier by being involved.

5. After the first two months, allow your fashionista to buy one piece of clothing in the third month. Just one. Your teen’s perspective will have changed. They will probably make a more careful selection, something they actually want instead of something they’ll wear once and throw into the pile. Talk to them about it, and what the process is like. Don’t be an I Told You So. Ask how it felt to purchase that one thing. Talk about how much more money they’ve had for other interests, such as concert tickets. Keep up the bonus money for no ritual habits like fashion magazines.

6. For the fourth month, tell your teen that one purchase per month is the new norm. And yes, buying a lip gloss counts as one. No more bonuses for staying away from the ritual stuff, unless you think your teen is still really battling the habit.

Three months can break a lot of habits. It will definitely change attitude, awareness, and behavior. Some teens may be more obsessive, and, say, save their money, and then take that first shopping opportunity in the third month and buy something outrageously expensive.

Let it go. See if they really love that thing they bought. If they do, great, they’ll know the value of saving up for something really good, versus a lot of impulse, addictive buying. If they don’t love it, they’ll learn that they were acting out and the only person it negatively affected was themselves.

Do try to be patient and positive. Even if you find the shopping habit distasteful, it is always hard to break a habit. Talk to your teen about how important it is not to be a slave to shopping. It’s not just important in terms of their relationship to money, but their emotional health as well. Ask how they feel, a lot.

Good luck and please send on any feedback from the teens themselves, if they go through this process.

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There’s a lot of discussion out there about when is the best time to open a checking account for your teen. I say now, and it doesn’t matter whether they have a job or not. Open one even with allowance as the only income.

In my ever so humble opinion, kids should have a savings account by age 8 and and checking account by age 13.

I’ve been reading a lot of studies recently that tell me too many kids are going to college with no bank account practice. The most conservative studies show that 25% of teens go off to college with no bank account at all, not even a savings account. That’s 25% of the blossoming adult population that will surely bounce checks in their early financial life.

Less than half of high school seniors had checking accounts.

No high school senior should be without a checking account and a debit card that parents teach them how to use. It doesn’t matter if there’s never more than $20 in it. If they can learn to write a check, to make sure they have the money in their account to cover their check, and to track debit expenses online, they will be far less likely to ever bounce a check. If parents leave these lessons to kids to learn on their own, they’re going to learn the hard way, which could affect their credit.

These things are not taught in high school. They need to be taught.

I don’t see the upside to waiting. I understand that money power can be a source of control for kids that many parents find unhealthy, or undeserved, if their teens have demonstrated a lack of personal responsibility, or even recklessness, especially with money.

If that’s the case–you have a really irresponsible teen–then make the act of open the checking account for them an act of scrutiny, not freedom. It’s all in the presentation.

For the responsible teen, you open both a savings and a checking account, and say they are an important rite of passage, a privilege, and you’re going to help them learn to manage those accounts so they can have a safe, harmonious relationship with money. You will proudly co-sign for the accounts, and get them a kid friendly one, with lenient overdraft protection in case they make mistakes at first.

For the irresponsible teen, try to come at it as a general responsibility lesson. And believe me, I know how frustrating it can be. I know teens who are so infuriating the last thing you want to do is give them access to money. But keep your eye on the ball, even if they take it as this great privilege and victory at first. And even if you need to reward even the slightest good behavior.

Bear with me here.

First, you’re going to explain the dangers of being irresponsible with money: bad credit is number one, and how that can affect your adult life. You won’t be able to buy a car, rent an apartment–all the important life stuff.

If they’re in the “I don’t care about any of that” mode, then tell them they really want to know because it will help them buy all the stuff they ask for constantly, and even get extra money from you. Their eyes will light up at this, and just bite your lip, because you’re about to lure them into the lion’s den. Let them be smug for the moment.

Open them both a checking and savings account, co-signed. Do be sure to get them overdraft protection but don’t tell the irresponsible kid that you’ve gotten them this buffer.

If their only income is allowance, tell them their allowance has to be filtered through the account–meaning they must deposit the money into the account, and then use a debit card for their purchases. Each week, right before the next allowance day, they have to make a pie chart of what they bought, categorizing the money spent: junk food, movies, etc. If they are forced to use a debit card, you will know exactly what they’re spending money on. If they have a side job on top or instead of allowance, do the same thing, and have them make a pie chart the day before they get their next pay.

For every week they save some of their money, contribute the same amount to their savings account, even if it’s just some change, even if it’s just pennies. Do not let them have access to spending their savings account money.

Tell them the more they save each week, the more you contribute, and they can grow their money.

Let them have a goal for that savings account: a pair of designer sneakers they want, a really great concert coming up. The goal should be something long term enough to make it hard to earn, but short term enough that they get some reward for really trying. If they don’t get a reward for making an effort, the will become discouraged. You want them to have successful experiences here in order to make good habits stick.

The ways in which good checking and savings account skills can be generalized in their lives is far reaching. It will slow down the “I want” mantra. It will make them think before they act, even if it’s just a little. It will help them see big picture, which is hard to get any teen to do. The whole point of being a teen is that it’s easy to shrug off implications.

Good luck and write in if you try this, particularly with a difficult teen, and let me know the progress, or any problems you’re encountering.

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I know you think this sounds like a joke, but it’s not, especially for parents out there with boys.

Wait. My husband is yelling that I’m sexist from his dent in the sofa. (That’s what I call the area he has literally worn a huge dent in from overuse. You could trace it with chalk, like the police do at a crime scene, and see an outline of his laying down body).

I’m not being sexist. I’m just an immovable realist. When boys and girls date, and the boy is interested in more-than-a-friend way, he often wants to treat, and the pressure is still here, in 2009, for him to do so. Now, sometimes the girl will jump in and offer to pay for herself, or treat next time, but the discussion is still there, and the possibility of one person’s allowance bearing the load of the entire bill is the point here.

By the way, the advice I will eventually get to in this blog is not just for teenagers. It can apply to your college students as well.

So now that summer is essentially here, there’s a lot more going on, going out, and all of that costs money. What are the rules for extra money for your kids, when it comes to dating and all the added activities summer brings? Sometimes, it’s a matter of you handing out more money so your teen can go dutch with a date to all sorts of events, like fairs, after that week’s allowance has long run dry.

Okay, the 4 ground rules of dating:

1. If your teen has an allowance, not a job: You probably need to insist that he or she not treat other people, even if they can’t live without them. Really, before you simply pitch in for the other kid, who may well break your kid’s heart by the end of the summer, think about it.

Say your teenage son finds it embarrassing to be unable to treat. Guess what he can do? He can get a job. It’s a great way to teach a lesson about affordability. If there aren’t suitable jobs available in your area, give him some real labor to do around the house and yard—things that you really would be paying someone else to do.

2. If your teen has a job, and wants to spend every cent on the girlfriend: You may have a variety of feelings about this. Weighing in from the dent in the sofa, my husband, who seems to be particulary amused by all this, thinks that’s fine. He has that “let the kid have fond memories of a summer love” attitude. Of course if the kid must help pay for his college, he can’t afford that fantasy.

In any case, I’m way too uptight for that. Think about insisting that your teen put a portion of those earnings into savings. And not just because the girlfriend may dump him by the end of summer, but because they’re not married and he should be saving some money. (see my post about Saving Wisely).

Offer to match the amount he’ll save as incentive. It is true that the desire to treat a loved one is gracious, so you don’t necessarily want to squash that urge, just temper it.

3. Teach teens how to talk about money to the people they’re dating. This is harder for teens than it is for college students, but you know what? It’s hard for everyone, including adults. If they can learn to have honest conversations about money at a young age, they’ll be way ahead of the game.

It’s important if one of the dating couple has a job and the other doesn’t, or if both don’t, or even if both do. It also prevents anyone from feeling like they’re being taken advantage of. Tell your teen that bit specifically if they look at you like you have three heads when you suggest they speak to their brand new love of their life about “being cheap”. (Yes, that’s a quote).

So, what they need to do is talk to their date about how they’ll work out the money part of their relationship. It’s so much pressure at that age, this is what I suggest to teens, and even college students– and please chime in with any other ideas:

Tell the person you’re dating that in an ideal world, you’d love it if money didn’t matter and you could treat them all the time. But you’re just not in that place in your life yet. So, can there be the assumption that we’ll share the expense of the things we do, unless one of us says specifically that they want to treat for this.

It doesn’t have to be awkward: Let’s say they want to go on a boat trip, but one of them, or both of them, don’t have the money. Say to each other: How can we plot to get it? (Let them plot together to hit you up for it. As long as they’re sharing the burden of making it happen, the plan is working.)

Very important here: If one teen has a job and the other doesn’t, you need to tell the teen with a job to be sensitive to the other person’s ability to afford an outing before suggesting it. Hey, this is great advice for adults, too, so use examples from your own life.

My husband and I have really good friends who simply can’t afford much right now. So when we want to splurge on an expensive restaurant, we don’t ask them to join us unless we’re prepared to invite them as our guests. And still, you don’t want to insult someone’s dignity, so it better be a special occasion. I tell these stories to kids all the time, and it helps.

I also tell them the reverse: It’s okay to tell someone you can’t afford to do something, can we do something else? I do that in my own life. I have to reign in wealthy friends from time to time. The less energy we put into the embarrassment, the better.

4. Say both your teen, and the person who’s attached to their hip this summer, simply can’t afford to go to special events, and you want to help. Before you end up just treating them both, give them a chance to earn it together. Got a younger kid you’d like babysat for an afternoon? Ask them to let that kid tag along for a day—which could be fun for them anyway—and in return you’ll treat the concert.

Good luck. You’ll need it. And please share teen dating stories!

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Regardless where we stand on how much privacy and leeway teens get with their allowance, some parameters must set or you’re going to be nickeled and dimed to death before you know it.

Teenagers are master manipulators when it comes to money. That’s why it’s such a good age to teach them sophisticated money lessons. When I watch those crafty little wheels spin I know there’s no need to wait until college to teach kids finances.

Here are 4 decisions we all need to make. It’s less important what those decisions are than the fact that they’re made, and put in writing. Make the decisions with your teenagers, have them take the lead, have them write it down. You can both sign it. They’ll take ownership of the contract, and you won’t get into arguments later.

1. Depending on your household economic situation is, decide if allowance is purely spending money, or if it must contribute to the household. If it’s affordable, I would encourage that it’s just spending money. If they earn it, having a certain freedom associated with it is a great motivation builder for being a good earner.

Make a list of what they’re expected to pay for with their allowance. This will also help you set the price of allowance. For instance, if you still pay for activities—movies, concert tickets, going to a fair—and they only pay for products they want, then a dollar for each year they’ve been alive might be okay. But if they have to pay for the movies, or entry fee to a special event, then they need more money because it’s expensive to do those things.

Make a list. Have them come up with the list once you decide the parameters. For instance, tell them that they’re responsible for all the products they want to buy and are constantly asking for. Having them make a list of them makes them really take a look at what they want so badly. Their priorities might change.

2. Rules for what parents pay for. Same drill as #1. You write down, while they witness it, what you’ll continue to pay for.

Danger zone: You can include food, water, shelter if you want. I actually advise against that. It can hurt their feelings and create distance to send teenagers the message that they’re all grown up and it’s a burden to house them. To reduce your cohabitating relationship to a business arrangement with an adult is quite a comment on intimacy. I hear this advice and, honestly, guilt trip, a lot, and I think it’s dangerous, even if the intention is good—to not coddle, to teach them hard lessons about the realities of the world and what things cost; to keep them from being bratty and demanding.

But there are other ways, and here’s what scares me about the “I put a roof over your head” approach: The reality of our world is that there’s a lot of danger to teenagers. We all know this: drugs and promiscuity cause disease, among other things. They’re at an age where they must rebel—must go through a stage of antithesis, in order to grow. Early childhood is the thesis statement of life; you are a product of your parents. Teenhood is the antithesis, where you rebel to see the world differently, to test your independence, which is vital to self care later. In adulthood, we reach synthesis, which is who we end up being. It’s probably a mix of where we came from and what new things we took on.

If, as a parent, you create too much distance during antithesis, then you run the risk of teenagers never confiding in you. When they rebel, they might run to extreme decisions to feel independent. I’m not saying that there’s a direct corollary between the roof over your head speech and teens doing drugs. But I do think that they are far from grown up when they’re teens, and the message that they owe you as if they’re adults will prevent them from coming to you for emotional parenting when they need it the most.

I want my daughter to confide me when she’s thinking of having sex with a boyfriend, or if she wants to try something potentially dangerous, or if she’s not in any shape to drive home and needs help.

So I have to say go easy here to teach lasting, productive money lessons. Money is something so many adults have anxiety about, and I have to say I think some of the anxiety comes from lessons they were taught as teens. Start out small, with the discretionary stuff, see if they are becoming more responsible just from this approach.

You can’t really go wrong arguing about who pays for concert tickets and who pays for the ridiculously expensive jeans your daughter must have. If you make the lesson about the goods and services the teenagers are interested in, they’ll be interested in the money lesson. And that’s more than half the battle.

Try at least to save the roof over your head until all else fails.

3. What is the division: spending, saving, giving to charity? Please do check out my posts on Spending Wisely and Saving Wisely for tips on how to spend allowance. But before that, do decide if all the money you give teenagers is for spending. If you can afford, up the amount each week—at at least $25-$30 and use the opportunity to really teach some money lessons that include investing and helping others.

If you do, definitely get a reloadable prepaid card for your kids. Load the money on each week, and then have them deal it out to spending, saving, and charity. I’m personally a fan of the triumvirate. My daughter has donated to saving animals with at least some of her allowance since she was 6.

Now she thinks about others, is the first one in the house at Christmastime to go in search of clothing and games we no longer use to give to Toys for Tots, Salvation Army, Goodwill, and the local shelters. Very important money lesson hidden here. Take your kid to churches or other donation spots when you donate. Show them what it’s like to live without means.

4. When do teens get extra money?

I’m a sucker for certain things, I admit it, so when it comes to things like proms I not only agree to pay for the dress or suit, but all the acoutrements—the jewelry, the gas for their car if they have one, money to go out with after, the corsage.

I actually think you don’t tell the kids this part. Surprise them on special occasions. Treat them when you feel like it makes sense, or when you can afford it. My daughter recently went to a charity dance for the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). She not only gathered up her allowance that week, but dug out everything she had hoarded in her “spending purse” and was prepared to bring every cent she had on her person to that event. In the car, I told her to put her money away, I wanted to make the donation on her behalf. She donates a lot. She agreed to let me pay half, but she wanted to give some, too.

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Allowance is inevitable. And it’s a minefield. Your teens are going to share with all their friends how much they get and what they have to do for it. They compare notes and you’ll hear about it if your rules are unjust. And you’ll pay for it in other ways if you’re too lax.

After many complaints, and many times being taken advantage of, I’ve come up with 5 key criteria for giving allowance. And I would love to hear other approaches. The more ideas we have on this teenage paycheck, the better!

1. How much should they get? $1.50 for each year they’ve been alive, if you can afford it. A movie can cost $10, and if you’ve got an older teen who wants to go on a date, anything less is very frustrating. You do not want them to work for money and then not be able to do anything. I’m open to comments here, because you could easily argue that that’s exactly what adult life can be like. But we want to encourage good earning habits and they need to see reward to develop positive habits.

It’s especially important to give a healthy allowance if your teens are involved in a lot of extracurricular activities that are really enriching. Then they truly won’t have time to supplement their allowance income with a part time job during the school year. You don’t want grades to suffer in the name of earning money. You don’t want them stressed with too much to do. Defeats the purpose of school.

2. They must earn it. It is not a given. If they don’t do their jobs that week, they don’t get it. I include “without being reminded” to that credo. If they have to be nagged to do a job, they’re not taking responsibility. Teens are old enough to do it on their own.

Some people believe that kids work hard enough in school and should just get an allowance without additional burden on them; and the focus should be on how that allowance is spent. (I’ll do my next blog on rules for allowance once it’s in their hot little hands. But also check out my posts on Spending Wisely and Saving Wisely). I’ve heard this philosophy for older, as well as very young kids. I’m interested in hearing stories about how that works. What’s it like to get those same kids to do jobs around the house, clean their room, etc. if their allowance is automatic?

I never tried that, I have to admit. From the moment my daughter got an allowance, age 6, she had to earn it. Until that point I paid for everything. The whole point was I was tired of her asking for crap and expecting it without any sense of opportunity cost. If she also got the allowance for free, what would be the difference, except for her counting it out at the store? The free lunch concept, and maybe some good math skills, would be the only lessons to sink in.

My experience with trading allowance for jobs has been nothing but positive. And not just for me, of course. My daughter was always proud to earn her money. Now she is confident she can earn money, and as she gets older, her expectation to be a good earner is all set. That’s such an important goal, and I didn’t even see that one from the outset.

Look at the adults around you. The confident ones are the good earners. I really don’t believe we burden them by asking that they do jobs. I think it boosts their confidence and sets them free.

One more thing: If your kid does a great job and your economic situation allows for it, I’d up the dollar-per-age deal a bit, especially if they agree to invest some of their money in savings and investment vehicles. If you have a savings plan for their money, I’d go with $20 per week at least. $25 if you can afford it.

3. They must do jobs for the common good, not just taking care of themselves and their own space. I don’t like to give money to kids for cleaning their room or putting away their things. Self-care is about personal dignity and sense of organization. No one will ever pay them for those things as an adult, and they should take care of themselves as part of growing up.

The idea of a job is to contribute to something that includes more than yourself. Besides, can you imagine what kind roommate or spouse you’re raising if they expect to be paid for picking up their dirty clothes off the floor? Yikes, I don’t want to field slob complaint calls from a son-in-law, and there’s no doubt my husband would hand the phone to me.

4. They must come up with their own 2 jobs, and when they get a raise—commensurate with experience, which we’ll call age—they need to add a new chore.

I’m not entirely sure where I came up with two jobs as a starting point. Maybe so there’d be room to add a lot more. Maybe to make kids successful without overload—especially since they need to remember their jobs without reminding. Maybe just because that’s what my mother and father did.

Another idea, which a teenager gave me, is to make the two jobs increasingly difficult as the kid ages. So maybe they start out with gathering and taking out all the trash in the house (including bathroom and den wastepaper baskets) and cleaning the kitchen, and the following year they have to mow the lawn and weed. Not a bad approach. Probably better than mine. Maybe suggest to your teens that they can choose one option or the other: make the jobs more difficult, or add a new job.

One warning label here: Be careful about making childcare for a younger sibling count as a job. There are lots of pros and cons, and once you make that decision, you’re stuck with it. (I’ll do a separate blog on whether babysitting should be a paid gig, or considered hanging out. Huge tradeoffs, tough decision, and there might be differences between daytime and nighttime rules. Bonding is key without pay, but teenagers do get taken advantage of.)

5. Do not revoke allowance for bad behavior—even if they really deserve it. I’m now a firm believer in not revoking allowance for any other reason than failure to do their jobs. I have to admit I’m a recent convert to this way of thinking. I used to yank allowance for misbehavior, even if my daughter did her jobs. But once, when I was just furious with my daughter for lying—I still get angry just thinking about it—I told her that she wasn’t getting allowance that week.

Then, what the conniving kid did, thanks to too many lessons in negotiating, is call me on breach of contract. Yes, she used that term, threw it right in my face.

“I lived up to my part of the agreement. You must give me my allowance, or I could sue you. Well, I could if this were the real world. You’re a hypocrite. You have to find something else to punish me with.”

I opened my mouth to add more punishment for mouthing off to me, but…but she was right. The point of allowance in trade for doing a job is to show kids what earning money is like, what sustaining a job with responsibilities means, relying on the reward, and using the reward wisely. Revoking allowance because of a behavioral infraction that has nothing to do with the agreement, is like a restaurant manager docking a waiter’s pay for saying something rude or accidentally breaking a plate, after that waiter just finished an eight-hour shift serving people well. There are laws against those sorts of things.

All was not lost, though. I opted to ground my daughter for lying, so she didn’t have anywhere to go to spend her allowance.

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I hate to say what I’m about to say. I really do. I’m not the Benedict Arnold type. I think my close friends would say I’m a loyal friend. But you won’t believe that after you see what I have to say about teaching teens to spend wisely. Still, I have to say what I think works best. Just know I’d much prefer to say, “Do as I say, not as I do,” but that won’t work with a 7-year-old, much less a teenager.

Without further defensive preamble, here are the first two steps, which subscribe to two learning theories: One, we learn most and best from mistakes. Two, kids love nothing more than when parents are wrong.

1. Let your kids interview you about your spending habits. Make it focused and simple. Tell them your budget for discretionary spending money per week (that way you don’t have to reveal too much about your overall financial picture if you don’t want). So, you tell them an amount, and what you think you spend on different things. They should write all this down. Call it the Estimate.

2. Then let them track your habits over one week. Give them all your receipts. Each evening, report to them what you spent. They should write all this down. Call it the Truth.

For the record, my husband outright refused to participate in this teaching project (he’s smarter than you’d think, looking at him). My brother participated. Of course he did. The man still wears corduroy pants he had when we were in our 20s. He denies it, but I remember them! He came out like a stellar example of spending. His Truth was the same as his Estimate. Last time I invite him to participate.

I didn’t do so well. Kids say I’m in denial about more than a few things. How, for example, could I claim that I buy two or three cappuccinos a week when it was at least six. How could I not be aware of something I do every day?

My only choice was to snap back that they should save their money and buy me a cappuccino maker for mother’s day. Last year I got burnt toast and tepid coffee in bed, only after I reminded my family what day it was. Unfair I know, but I’ll swipe the guilt card whenever I can. I’m way outnumbered.

Embarrassing as it was, the kids learned more from me than from my brother. Way more. And they didn’t feel bad when their Estimate didn’t match up to their Truth—which of course is the next step.

I do strongly recommend doing the first two steps with someone who will not look so good. It’s like when you have a small child and they’re scared to do something: ride a roller coaster, or go to a haunted house. You don’t tell them how easy and great it is. They just feel more inept because of their fear. You tell them there’s no way you’re going, you’re too scared.

3. You interview your kid about their Estimated spending habits. Write it down. The key here is to put away judgment. Don’t comment every time they bring up something you think is a waste. They need to remain open in this exercise. Tell them that no matter how this ends up, you’re going to open a checking account for them, and get them a reloadable student debit card at the end of the week. The point of this and step 4 is to raise awareness. That’s it.

Spending what you say you’re going to spend per week without going over budget is a great skill. How many adults do you know with that skill? It’ll take a few steps to get there. Don’t go too fast on the spending wisely lesson, and don’t load them up with too much. Conditioning always necessitates that each step is completely ingested. Awareness. Just stick to that for now.

4. Track their spending for one week. Write it down and call it the Truth.

5. No matter how they do, open that checking account, get that debit card. Don’t put any energy into how they performed. Awareness. Keep your eye on the ball. You’ll notice that you’ve bonded a bit, too. They’ll see you as more fallible, and their own desires as okay. Remember, if you sneak candy bars or whatever, tell them during your Truth, even it flies in the face of lectures you’ve given before. The more human they see you here, the better. Load their allowance onto the debit card and start them off. The great part about this being step 5 is now they’re used to having their spending tracked. With a reloadable debit card, you go online and can see what they’re spending, line item by line item, just like with a credit card.

6. Up the ante with bonuses. For two months, each week their Truth matches their Estimate, give them 25% extra allowance. Just load it on their card. Now, this has variations and stages. If your kid estimates that he or she will spend their whole allowance, and they do, but they don’t ask you for extra stuff, then their Estimate has matched their Truth and they still get the extra 25%. If their Estimate includes saving some money each week, and they do in fact save it in their Truth, give them a 30% bonus. Tell them the more they save, the bigger bonus they’ll get.

7. After two months, only give them a bonus for saving some money, not just making their Estimate and Truth match up.

What I’ve found about teaching spending this way is that they become aware, love the grown up feeling of the debit card, and get motivated by the bonus money that starts to accumulate in their account. What you don’t have to do, using this method, is get embroiled in control battles about what is and isn’t a good purchase. I hate arguing with my daughter item by item. “How many electronic games can one person really use?” “I can’t believe you’d waste money on another clip-on backpack accessory!”

This method sidesteps control issues, instead of forcing a head-on collision. Please share any methods for wise spending that have worked with your teens!

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