The Tooth Fairy Made a Visit Last Night!

My son looks absolutely adorable with his missing tooth. As suspected, the Tooth Fairy made a visit last night and left a nice dollar bill in exchange for his tooth. She didn’t leave a savings bond as I first thought she would do.

It turns out that I had some troubles writing up an explanation of a savings bond and I felt it may be too much for my son to understand. I toyed with an idea of a Tooth Fairy Bank and tried to work out an “interest” scheme, but that didn’t work out well either. In the end, the Tooth Fairy gave my son a nice letter and left the dollar bill. My son was very happy at that.

I do think it’s important to try teach our children some personal finance and I believe one of the best ways is to discuss it is when the opportunity arises. I thought the Tooth Fairy idea would be a good one, but it didn’t materialize. But there are other ways to sneak in some lessons. For example, when my son has money to spend and we go to the store, I mention to him that he doesn’t have to spend his money now. He can always save it for later.

I thought that my words were falling on deaf ears because my son would spend all of the money he had with him, but my son proved me wrong. Yesterday, he had three dollars in the “Spend” portion of his piggy bank and he wanted to go shopping. We stopped at a dollar store and he was looking through everything. I didn’t say a word this time about saving his money for later. He picked up a box of $1.00 crayons and said, “I could buy these for $1.00 and then save $2.00 for later.”

That was a super-proud-mommy-moment. Even though I thought he wasn’t listening, he really was

Posted by Tricia on November 18, 2007 at 10:27 AM in Kids & Money | 13 Comments »
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Chief Family Officer responded:
Posted: November 18th, 2007 at 11:02 am
That’s awesome! You’re obviously doing something right
Mrs. Micah responded:
Posted: November 18th, 2007 at 11:20 am
That’s great! He’s a thrifty little consumer.
Madison responded:
Posted: November 18th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Great news. I can’t wait until my kids are old enough to learn about finance. I’m glad you were able to keep it simple instead of going in too deep with the savings bonds. Congrats!
FinanceIsPersonal.com responded:
Posted: November 18th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
That’s amazing. I remember getting a dollar every time the “tooth fairy” came, I usually used it to go to the swimming pool!
The Chef responded:
Posted: November 19th, 2007 at 6:55 am
Awesome! Congratulations to you. Why not teach him the time value of money now, i.e. the kid saves some money for say 2 months and he recieves 50% of the value of the money (interest) for his savings done.

He should also have an incentive to save i guess I hope I am not offending you.
Tricia responded:
Posted: November 19th, 2007 at 7:42 am
The Chef – no, no offending going on here

I was trying to think of a way to teach him interest, and that’s the way I was going with it when I was thinking about having a Tooth Fairy Bank. Trying to explain interest to a 5 year old is tough. When he’s a little bit older, I’ll try again.
The Simple Dollar » The Simple Dollar Morning Roundup: Talking to a Friend Edition responded:
Posted: November 19th, 2007 at 8:31 am
[...] The Tooth Fairy Made A Visit Last Night My wife and I have been very conflicted about the idea of a tooth fairy. If we operated in a social bubble, we would do away with it, but we’re also worried about our child coming home wondering why the “tooth fairy” never visits him or her. It’s a tough one. (@ blogging away debt) [...]
thisisbeth responded:
Posted: November 19th, 2007 at 9:19 am
Could you introduce the “Money Interst Fairy”? Explain that she comes and looks at his “save” portion of his piggy bank, and she gets really excited when she sees money there, so she leaves a some more money to reward him.

I’m not a parent, so I have no idea if this concept could be understood by kids (which later when he really does learn about interest, he’d realize exactly what you were teaching him from a young age).
Tricia responded:
Posted: November 19th, 2007 at 9:28 am
thisisbeth – Ooooh….I like that idea
Silensy responded:
Posted: November 19th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
I read this entry this morning but I just had to come back and comment now after a phone call I just got. Sometime many years ago, probably when I was about 7 or 8, my aunt bought my brother (who is a year older) and I saving bonds for our birthdays. At the time, it was a total let down, what kid would rather have potential money than actual money, right? Fast forward ten years–my brother decides that he needs new sunglasses and as usual is broke. He went to my father who bought the savings bond from him for its current value. I passed on the same offer because I didn’t need the money.

Fast forward another almost ten years and I get a phone call from my father today telling me that he cashed it in today and that he was going to be transferring the value to my account. Even at 26 years old, an extra $84 out of the blue is a nice bonus.

Don’t think that he’s too young to understand. He’ll grow up into it. Or he won’t. My brother still owns designer shades and is broke. And I took my $84 and put it back into a savings account.
little_earth responded:
Posted: November 21st, 2007 at 10:45 am
Silensy – I was the last in my family to hold out on my savings bonds!

But I just wanted to add in a tooth fairy story. That one stage of growing up (when you realize parents are playing the roles of important mythical figures) was when I was 10. I must have had a bad dream because I ended up in my parents bed that night. So in the morning I checked under their pillows. Then I ran into my room to check mine. I think the tooth had fallen down somewhere because it was gone. I told my parents the tooth fairy forgot to leave me money. They said wait a minute, when into the room, came back out and said “check now.” I guess I was old enough then because it is a story that is amusing to me….
Michelle responded:
Posted: November 26th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
I still have the savings bonds that were given to me as an infant, I dont think I will ever cash, its nice to know it is there for an emergency
Kenny responded:
Posted: January 16th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Yes, thatâ€™s right, kids must know how to save money, even if their parents have a lot. My experience taught me that when children have much money to spend, they always become spoiled and incapable of earning money themselves. They only know how to waste their mom and dadâ€™s money. If people donâ€™t teach their kids to save, they are only making them bad favour.