It was risky. The budget.
I had used this approach with the boy before. Over the last year, he and I have done several road trips. I would give us a daily budget that was intended for food and any activities—these trips usually involved visiting family or friends so were pretty budget friendly to begin with, but it’s still easy to over indulge when you’re on the road and not being careful about monitoring your spending, am I right? Especially the boy who has a limited palate and takes every opportunity to eat out…
So I would give us a daily trip allowance that we always shared. If we had a less expensive day, that money could roll over into the next day. We could even go over, but that would subtract from the overall budget. The incentive to stay within set spending limit was that I would give any remaining balance from the total budget to the boy at the end of the trip. The daily was really just a way to keep us on track.
I would collect the receipts throughout the day and each night, we’d go over what we’d spent and calculate whether we’d gone over or would carry a surplus into the next day, planning the next day’s meals/activities accordingly. Our most successful trip was when I gave us $20/day combined allowance for a two week trip and we managed to visit the aquarium in Lincoln City, OR, spend time in the Redwoods in N. California, eat out at several fun restaurants, and the boy still got $7 in cash at the end.
I decided to use this approach on this current trip with both kids (15yo girl; 12yo boy.) I was going to give us a combined total of $30/day, but when I told hubby this, he thought that was ridiculously low. (Mind you, the boy and I have survived on $15/day combined.) So I made sure we could afford it, then upped it to $60/day; $20 each. When I explained it to the girl, she had difficulty wrapping her head around how it worked and kind of scoffed at the amount.
When I told the boy the budget, he was elated! Already scheming ways we could pool our money some days to save overall. He had more experience with doing this whole roadtrip budget thing with me and assured his sister that $20/day each was a very generous allowance!
Why was it risky? I’ve noticed that we have created a lack mindset in our family, and I’m working hard to overcome that and help my children shift to a lens of abundance. It’s not easy—especially since we do struggle some financially. I can contrast us to people who have so much less or seemingly nothing and know we have way more than enough, but shifting these kids who’ve heard, “we can’t afford it” their whole lives is super challenging.
As siblings, they struggle to get along anyway, and I feared that throwing in an individual rather than a shared budget might contribute to an ego-centric attitude when choosing how to spend, and it could get ugly. I really wasn’t sure which would work better, but thought it might get even uglier if they had to collaborate on every purchase.
How did it turn out? You’ll have to return for Part Two on Thursday…
Restoring Justis 