Money Management 101

After watching both boys struggle to make responsible choices in the school cafeteria regarding both health and money management, I put my foot down.  I can thankfully monitor all of their choices electronically, but the minute I have a busy week and don't check, they start sneaking extras. The problem is that the cafeteria just lets their account fall into the negative rather than telling them they are out of money or don't have enough money to pay for it that day. Whenever that happened, they had to use their own money to balance out their account the following Monday. This family doesn't operate on credit, so I didn't like what I saw happening. Ugh.

So, this week I spent the same amount of money as I gave them for their lunches and bought food for them to pack instead.  David doesn't like the cafeteria food anyway, so he didn't have a problem with it. Juan David is all about image, so this didn't make him a happy camper. At all. (Hey, it's not like I didn't warn him multiple times.)

However, today we did a practice run-through for lunch at home on our day off. When the boys saw how much food they get to eat now for the same price (actually less, since neither one consistently stayed on their weekly budget), their attitudes changed significantly. 

"Wow.  Okay, now I like this idea." Juan David commented when he saw that he gets to take two of everything every day.

"Thank you for making me pack my lunch this week, Mommy." David said later as we cleaned up.

I'd say our Money Management class went rather well.