The Opposite of Spoiled by Ron Lieber made me think through my philosophy on money and how I plan to talk to my family about money now and in the future. I thought Ron Lieber tackled some challenging philosophical financial topics by providing tangible examples of how families address them.

I appreciated the sections on allowance, answering the question of “Are we rich?”, seeing money as a family value, and chores. 

My main takeaways:

Allowance

• Kids need an allowance to practice managing money.
• Allowance should not be funding necessities
• Save, spend, and give buckets
• Yearly raises, start as early as age 4

“We parents are in the adult-making business after all, and we should do everything possible not to squander the opportunity to build grown – up humans with 15 or 20 years of experience handling money.”

Values

• “Every conversation about money is also about values.”
• Telling your children we won’t buy it is much harder than saying we can’t afford it. 
• What is enough?
  • What do we value and prioritize as a family?
  • How do we make spending decisions?
  • How do we make philanthropy decisions?
• Are we rich?

“People who are poor don’t have everything they need, like food and clothing and medicine. We have those things, so we’re not poor. It’s also worth questioning whether being rich matters much anyway. The most important attributes for friends and classmates are things like kindness, loyalty, creativity, and generosity anyhow. Kids who lack those qualities are no fun otherwise , no matter how much stuff they have.”

Chores

Chores are necessary to prevent raising kids who are spoiled.

What is spoiled?

• They have few chores or other responsibilities.
• There aren’t many rules that govern their behavior or schedules.
• Parents and others lavish them with time and assistance.
• They have a lot of material possessions.

Quotes

“We should certainly do our part at home by making them do all kinds of chores . But they ought to do them for the same reason we do — because the chores need to be done , and not with the expectation of compensation . If they do them poorly, there are plenty of valuable privileges we can take away, aside from withholding money . So allowance ought to stand on its own, not as a wage but as a teaching tool that gets sharper and more potent over”

“Our job , then , is to stoke that instinct to work and to earn and see just how far their natural – born industriousness takes them . We can give them bigger and better jobs around the house.”

“Every child is capable of contributing to meals in a significant way , and we shouldn’t need to pay them to set the table.”

“Older kids might tackle the planning, for instance: tracking the swim practice and meet schedule, sending weekly memos to the parent who does the driving , booking the hotel rooms, and creating family itineraries.”

“A 2013 study found that the higher the percentage that parents contribute to a child’s college costs, the worse their grades tend to be, though the correlations aren’t quite as strong at highly competitive schools. Still, having some financial skin in the game seems to matter.”