by Amanda van der Gulik
Were you ever told as a kid to save, save, save your money? You know, work hard and save every penny? Well, I was, and being a ‘good girl’ I always did as I was told and I saved, saved, saved all my hard earned cash.
Then one day I asked myself, “What on earth am I saving all this money for?” I had no clue. I had been taught to save, but was never taught to set a goal, or what to do with that money once I saved it. So there I was a young adult with money saved in the bank and I found myself spending that money until it was all gone. It was a rebellious reaction.
Does that sound familiar at all? Do you have a similar story? Or maybe you were taught to spend your money straight away? Or if you were lucky, someone actually sat you down and taught you not only how to save your money but what to save it for so that your money would end up working hard for you. That’s the part that got left out for me.
It took me another 15 years for me to finally figure that part out! By then I was in debt, with no more savings, and no plan.
I went through a stage of ‘finding myself’, where I followed every self-help guru I could find to finally figure myself out. I knew I wanted to achieve financial success in my life but I had no idea how to do it. My parents had done their best, don’t get me wrong. I was fortunate to be raised by entrepreneurs with their own businesses and was taught from a young age to look for opportunities and not be afraid to try them regardless of whether I succeeded or failed.
They also taught me a little about investing in rental real estate. Only their version of that was to buy houses to rent and then to look after them themselves, even to the point of having to get up in the middle of the night to fix leaky toilets. After seeing the horror stories of their own rental houses, I have to admit I was a little bit shy to go down that path. They had one house, that when vacated, the tenants had shot bullet holes through the ceiling and they had cut the end of the kitchen counter off with a chainsaw! YIKES! No thank-you!
But then as I started to learn from the many mentors that I had sought out, I began to understand the concept of creating passive recurring income. That’s money that you do the effort for one time and get paid for over and over again continuously; kind of like a movie star that works on a film once and then gets paid royalties on that film for life each time it gets sold.
I have to admit that was a very tempting way to earn money. I got hooked. So I decided to look into the rental house investment strategy again, but this time learning how to hire property managers who would take care of all the day to day work of finding good tenants, keeping the place in good order, etc. so that all I had to do was the initial research to find the right place and then the minimal monthly paperwork. Much better!
So that gave me one goal for saving my money: save for down payments to buy more rental houses. But what else? There is more to life than just making money. The rental houses would provide me with more money but what about the other areas of my life. I had to learn more.
I wanted to make my life about helping others as well as enjoying some fun of my own. So I sat down and made a plan about what was important to me. I wanted to teach children about money so they would be able to start their adult lives on the right financial path. I had a dream to create money camps for kids all over the world. I also wanted to travel with my own kids while homeschooling them. There were also some smaller goals I wanted to achieve.
After years of learning from different money and self-help gurus I finally narrowed my money saving down to 6 different areas to help me create a full, healthy, balanced life of earning money, spending money and helping others.
I created “The 6 Magical Piggy Banks” system to use for myself as well as to teach to my children.
Now I’d like to share my system with you so you and your children can have a quick start to financial freedom without the need of wasting years of your life trying to figure it all out. Each of the following 6 piggy banks is equally as important as each other. The key to making these piggy banks work is to routinely put equal amounts into each bank.
The 6 Magical Piggy Banks:
1. GROW – This is the piggy bank where you save money for further investing, this money is meant to make you more money, preferably recurring passive income (i.e. rental real estate, books, videos, etc.)
2. GIVE – This bank is for donating to others. There is a certain magic that comes from releasing some of your money out into the universe to help others. It gives you a sense of freedom over your money. When you give yourself the power to release your money you are telling the universe that you believe in abundance, that money is easy to give away and therefore easy to receive.
3. RAIN – This is money you save, never to be touched! This is money for that rainy day when your world turns up-side-down and you have nothing left to help you out. This is the bank that we all wish we had set up when we were kids to help us out of those unfortunate times in our lives when we desperately needed financial aid.
4. LEARN – This bank is to encourage further learning. There may be times in your life when you need to take a different path and you need the funds to learn a new skill. For kids this can be money they save up to pay for special lessons, like piano, ballet or hockey. This can also be their college fund. The point here is to encourage a love of learning new things and making the possibility of learning always open to them and yourself.
5. GOAL – This is the piggy bank that you will use to save up for a special specific goal. This is to encourage delayed gratification (i.e. a vacation, or a new toy)
6. FUN – This is the money that you get to spend right away, to fulfill that need for instant gratification and to keep your child motivated to continue to earn their own money. This too will help build their abundance mentality and feel good about themselves that they get to spend some of their hard earned money without guilt.
These 6 Magical Piggy banks have been very helpful for me and my children. I know you will enjoy them too and they will help you and your child to take control over your money so you are the boss, not your money!
Best-selling author, Amanda van der Gulik has been homeschooling her own two children for over 11 years and is the founder of www.TeachingChildrenAboutMoney.com. Visit Amanda’s site today to grab your FREE copy of her eBook, “50 Money Making Ideas for Kids and Teens” or her “The 6 Magical Piggy Banks” cartoon.
Were you ever told as a kid to save, save, save your money? You know, work hard and save every penny? Well, I was, and being a ‘good girl’ I always did as I was told and I saved, saved, saved all my hard earned cash.
Then one day I asked myself, “What on earth am I saving all this money for?” I had no clue. I had been taught to save, but was never taught to set a goal, or what to do with that money once I saved it. So there I was a young adult with money saved in the bank and I found myself spending that money until it was all gone. It was a rebellious reaction.
Does that sound familiar at all? Do you have a similar story? Or maybe you were taught to spend your money straight away? Or if you were lucky, someone actually sat you down and taught you not only how to save your money but what to save it for so that your money would end up working hard for you. That’s the part that got left out for me.
It took me another 15 years for me to finally figure that part out! By then I was in debt, with no more savings, and no plan.
I went through a stage of ‘finding myself’, where I followed every self-help guru I could find to finally figure myself out. I knew I wanted to achieve financial success in my life but I had no idea how to do it. My parents had done their best, don’t get me wrong. I was fortunate to be raised by entrepreneurs with their own businesses and was taught from a young age to look for opportunities and not be afraid to try them regardless of whether I succeeded or failed.
They also taught me a little about investing in rental real estate. Only their version of that was to buy houses to rent and then to look after them themselves, even to the point of having to get up in the middle of the night to fix leaky toilets. After seeing the horror stories of their own rental houses, I have to admit I was a little bit shy to go down that path. They had one house, that when vacated, the tenants had shot bullet holes through the ceiling and they had cut the end of the kitchen counter off with a chainsaw! YIKES! No thank-you!
But then as I started to learn from the many mentors that I had sought out, I began to understand the concept of creating passive recurring income. That’s money that you do the effort for one time and get paid for over and over again continuously; kind of like a movie star that works on a film once and then gets paid royalties on that film for life each time it gets sold.
I have to admit that was a very tempting way to earn money. I got hooked. So I decided to look into the rental house investment strategy again, but this time learning how to hire property managers who would take care of all the day to day work of finding good tenants, keeping the place in good order, etc. so that all I had to do was the initial research to find the right place and then the minimal monthly paperwork. Much better!
So that gave me one goal for saving my money: save for down payments to buy more rental houses. But what else? There is more to life than just making money. The rental houses would provide me with more money but what about the other areas of my life. I had to learn more.
I wanted to make my life about helping others as well as enjoying some fun of my own. So I sat down and made a plan about what was important to me. I wanted to teach children about money so they would be able to start their adult lives on the right financial path. I had a dream to create money camps for kids all over the world. I also wanted to travel with my own kids while homeschooling them. There were also some smaller goals I wanted to achieve.
After years of learning from different money and self-help gurus I finally narrowed my money saving down to 6 different areas to help me create a full, healthy, balanced life of earning money, spending money and helping others.
I created “The 6 Magical Piggy Banks” system to use for myself as well as to teach to my children.
Now I’d like to share my system with you so you and your children can have a quick start to financial freedom without the need of wasting years of your life trying to figure it all out. Each of the following 6 piggy banks is equally as important as each other. The key to making these piggy banks work is to routinely put equal amounts into each bank.
The 6 Magical Piggy Banks:
1. GROW – This is the piggy bank where you save money for further investing, this money is meant to make you more money, preferably recurring passive income (i.e. rental real estate, books, videos, etc.)
2. GIVE – This bank is for donating to others. There is a certain magic that comes from releasing some of your money out into the universe to help others. It gives you a sense of freedom over your money. When you give yourself the power to release your money you are telling the universe that you believe in abundance, that money is easy to give away and therefore easy to receive.
3. RAIN – This is money you save, never to be touched! This is money for that rainy day when your world turns up-side-down and you have nothing left to help you out. This is the bank that we all wish we had set up when we were kids to help us out of those unfortunate times in our lives when we desperately needed financial aid.
4. LEARN – This bank is to encourage further learning. There may be times in your life when you need to take a different path and you need the funds to learn a new skill. For kids this can be money they save up to pay for special lessons, like piano, ballet or hockey. This can also be their college fund. The point here is to encourage a love of learning new things and making the possibility of learning always open to them and yourself.
5. GOAL – This is the piggy bank that you will use to save up for a special specific goal. This is to encourage delayed gratification (i.e. a vacation, or a new toy)
6. FUN – This is the money that you get to spend right away, to fulfill that need for instant gratification and to keep your child motivated to continue to earn their own money. This too will help build their abundance mentality and feel good about themselves that they get to spend some of their hard earned money without guilt.
These 6 Magical Piggy banks have been very helpful for me and my children. I know you will enjoy them too and they will help you and your child to take control over your money so you are the boss, not your money!
Best-selling author, Amanda van der Gulik has been homeschooling her own two children for over 11 years and is the founder of www.TeachingChildrenAboutMoney.com. Visit Amanda’s site today to grab your FREE copy of her eBook, “50 Money Making Ideas for Kids and Teens” or her “The 6 Magical Piggy Banks” cartoon.
