Finances and Children: Parenting IV

Raising children to become financially savvy increases advantages.

The day after they were born, our children received money from relatives.I opened a bank account for each child. At about four years of age, they were getting an inkling of what money was about so they helped put newly received money into their account.

In order to set an example ourselves, my husband and I made great effort to be financially responsible. We paid all our bills on time and rarely used the credit card if we couldn’t pay the entire amount off at the end of the month.

When we donated to charities, we found the children also loved to contribute.

We gave them paying jobs around the house when they were about nine years old. They were happily impressed to see how their paychecks increased their bank account considerably. Their work-ethic was recognized by other people, who hired them when they were fourteen years old.

As licensed foster parents, we applied the same principles to all the children who came to stay with us. When they moved on they took with them a bank account book and learned skills.

We are also cheap.

We cook our own meals instead of eat out. We share clothes. We drive used, paid for vehicles. We stay at hostels when traveling. We re-use kleenex when we don’t have a washable hanky handy. Craigslist is our shopping mall. I don’t even own, therefore make monthy payments on, a cell-phone. We haven’t paid a TV, cable bill for over twenty years (no TV reception started that savings fad, but it served us well  because there was no arguing about TV shows and the girls earned high grades).

All this cheapness pays off. Sometimes it put a dent in our ego. However, the day comes when we can purchase something really fantastic.

For example, when the oldest daughter turned sixteen she had the funds to purchase her dream car, a 69 Chevy Camaro. She drove it until she went to college and then her sister drove it.

One lesson I did learn, however, while teaching financial lessons, is that I needed to have the right attitude. At one point I was thinking I had  superior ability to be cheap. But, a superior attitude, by default, accepts an inferior attitude. So, instead of thinking I have a smart, or dumb, brain, I pray to open my consciousness to the all-wise God. I can still be cheap, but I never begrudge paying higher prices for something worthwhile.

Camaro by the Columbia River

“Experience should be the school of virtue.” —Science and Health

In other words, experience should not be the school of confusion and lack.

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A Series on Food and Eating I: Organic Foods

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, by Michael Pollan, is a fascinating book. I am on page 242 of 415. So far, my intrigue has climaxed with Pollan’s report on his visit to Polyface Farm in Virginia, owned and operated by Joel Salatin.

Salatin’s motto is, “The way I produce food is an extension of my worldview.” Apparently, Salatin’s worldview is inclusive and mobile.

Polyface Farm does not mimic the monocultural “industrial organic” farms, but a sustainable polyculture that is serious about clean food and symbiotic relationships. Salatin isn’t producing one homogonized item, such as thousands of chickens. Polyface Farm includes trees, grass, cows, chickens, turkeys, and hogs. Fresh compost is produced from wood chips and organic material. Manure is natural fertilizer. Every creature is moved daily, so as not to overuse the grass. Furthermore, the foul, “dine on the insects that would otherwise bother the hervbivore; they also pick insect larvae and parasites out of the animal’s droppings, breaking the cycle of infestation and disease.”

Salatin has broken out of the industrial view of the world as linear and hierarchal. All creatures are equally important, diverse, and interdependent. They are in a state of readiness, easily mobilized to work together for the good of the whole. Not to say Polyface Farm is an ideal, there is no human ideal, however the principles underlying the action is worth contemplation.

A holistic view allows for a fuller expression of our distinctiveness, and for God’s infinite individuality.

By Michael Pollan

Greenspan’s Comment on World’s Market

I just finished reading Alan Greenspan’s book, The Age of Turbulence. Greenspan is one of those people I am very grateful for, because I was not wired to cogitate the way he does, therefore Greenspan is the more acceptable Chairperson of the Federal Reserve Board.

However, Greenspan did not bore me. Aside from the plethora of dates, stats, and percentages he repeatedly spouted off, I felt his candor, intellect, and respect for humanity.

At one point, Greenspan mentioned that even though the world’s market can get royally messed up there is an “International invisible hand guiding the market.” The market rebounds, human beings move on.

“Spirit blesses, but we cannot “tell where it comes from or where it is going.” (John 3:8) By Spirit the sick are healed, the stressed are comforted, and the sinning are reformed. These are the effects of one universal God, the invisible good dwelling in eternal Science.”–21st Century Science and Health

Understanding the Market