The 4 Little Pigs

On the weekend we celebrated my daughter’s 8th Birthday. She received money from several relatives (a total of $190) and we thought it would be interesting to see how she would budget it between her 4 piggy banks for SPENDING, SAVING, SHARING and SCHOOLING.

I gave her some time to think about it and asked her to divide it however she liked. When she was ready, she called me into her bedroom. The following is how she chose to allocate the money and her reasons why.

SPENDING – “I put $20 in SPENDING because Grandpa told me he wanted me to buy myself something special and to let him know what I bought.”

SAVING – “I put $130 in SAVING because I want to save up to buy a car and they cost a lot of money”

SHARING –“I put $5 in SHARING because I already put a lot of my allowance money in there and that will give me enough to buy a bed net for the children in Africa to help prevent malaria”

SCHOOLING –“I put $35 in SCHOOLING because University is going to cost a lot of money and I need the interest on that money so I have enough”

I was pretty impressed with her reasoning and told her that I thought she did a great job. She’s learned so much through using her 4 Piggy banks and it was exciting to see that she “gets it”. She proceeded to put all the money into her piggy banks as she explained to me that she would.

The following day I took her to the bank after school so that she could deposit the money from her SAVING piggy bank into her bank account and we topped up her RESP with the money from her SCHOOLING piggy bank. Through Plan Canada I helped her with purchasing the bed net with her SHARING money and she used her SPENDING money to purchase a few books from the book order which she can’t wait to show her Grandpa!

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I’m a writer….and I don’t know the first thing about using an ipad so when a friend suggested creating a digital version of my book for ipad I told him I wouldn’t know where to start. Lucky for me, he teaches graphic design and owns not one, but several ipads, ipods and apple t.v.’s and was really excited about trying out the new program that allows authors to publish their material and sell it on itunes.

We embarked on this journey together earlier this year and it was a learning process for both of us. On my end, I had to set up a paid books account through apple which meant creating an itunes account, getting a new isbn for the new e-version of my book and obtaining an employment identification number through the IRS (apparently you need this to submit your work to apple). Even though I’m not tech savvy, I do know how to navigate google and through some searching was able to complete my part of the process. My graphic design friend did an amazing job converting the book using apple’s publishing program and we submitted the final work for their approval. After several weeks of waiting for apple’s authorization, “The 4 Little Pigs” (a financial values book for children) is available for $2.99 on itunes. You can check it by clicking here.

I still don’t own an ipad….but my birthday is coming up soon!

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Monetary gifts are becoming a popular choice when you just don’t know what to buy for a kid. Sometimes it’s easier to hand over some money and let a child decide what they would like to buy when you have no idea what they’re into. In our family, monetary gifts present a great opportunity to reinforce the value of “The 4 Little Pigs”.

When my children receive monetary gifts for birthdays or Christmas, they have the opportunity to decide how they would like to budget their gift between their four piggy banks for SPENDING, SAVING, SHARING and SCHOOLING. It can be very interesting to see how much they want to put in each bank and we’ve had some interesting discussions and learned a lot about our children’s money habits by listening to their reasoning. Our only rule is that some of their monetary gift must be put into each bank and that we would like them to explain why they chose to divide it this way.

My son tends to be a spender, so the majority of his gift money will go into SPENDING. He also will put quite a bit into his SCHOOLING because from the time he was little he’s been taught that post secondary school education is expensive! He loves that school is “FREE” for now. He always has a SHARING goal (right now he’s saving his SHARING money to purchase a goat through Plan Canada), so generally he’ll split gift money equally between his SAVING and SHARING piggy banks.

On the other hand, we’ve seen that my daughter is much more of a saver. She will put the majority of her gift money into her SAVING piggy bank so that she can deposit it into her bank account at the end of the month. Even thought she is only 7, she’s got some big goals of saving for a car and a house! The remainder of her gift money will usually be equally split between her other three banks for SPENDING, SHARING and SCHOOLING.

With Christmas right around the corner, some important lessons in financial responsibility can be learned when children receive monetary gifts. We’ve enjoyed both teaching our children how to budget gift money between their 4 piggy banks but have also learned a lot about their SPENDING habits and SAVING goals. Their SHARING piggy bank has opened our eyes to their individual interests in how they choose to make a difference in the lives of others and what their dreams for their future are – which their SCHOOLING money will help pay to prepare and educate them for.

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This Easter, give your child a gift they’ll love and learn from with “The 4 Little Pigs!”  Many parents are looking for alternatives to giving their children tons of chocolate and “The 4 Little Pigs” offers a great solution.  With your order of either a copy of the award winning book or the 4 Piggies Financial Kit for Kids, your son/daughter will receive a personalized copy of the book with a message to them from the author!  Simply send a quick e-mail with your child’s name to the author at Jeanette@fourpiggies.com after placing your order and she’ll make sure your child’s personalized book is included before shipment.  As an added bonus, take advantage of a 10% discount on all orders placed up until April 21^st, 2011 by entering the coupon code “EasterBunny” upon checkout.  Your gift of “The 4 Little Pigs” to your child this Easter will be a gift enjoyed for years to come and start them on the path to learning about money and financial responsibility!

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Every day during the week of March Break (March 14^th – 18^th, 2011), we will be giving away a copy of the award winning children’s book “The 4 Little Pigs” (a financial values book for children).  To enter, go to the ABOUT section of our website and fill in the CONTACT form.  In your message let us know that you’re entering the March Break Book a Day Give-away contest along with your child(ren)’s name.   A winner will be chosen on each day of the March break and posted on our homepage.  Winners will receive an autographed copy of The 4 Little Pigs (a financial values book for children) along with a special message from the author to your child!  Contest is open to all residents of Canada and the United States.

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Several weeks ago while preparing material for Money Smart Kids, I came across the website Planet Orange.   The website was created by ING Direct as a way to help teach kids more about money and how to use it.  Immediately I was intrigued and wanted to see if the site would be something that I could use to add to the financial education of my own children.

After registering both of my children, they each proceeded to customize their own astronaut and begin to explore Planet Orange.  Kids use virtual money called Obux and begin at the Space Station which is the home to all the activities.  The four sections that children can visit in their rocket are Mandarin Mountains, Orangeopolis, Tangy Town and Navel City.  My daughter learned a valuable lesson in the first 15 minutes she spent on Planet Orange when she used all her Obux to purchase games and was left with no fuel in her rocket to visit any other sections on the site.  She had to find and complete a job to earn some Obux to purchase fuel for her rocket.  Each of the four sections has lessons in Saving, Spending Earning and Investing and the great thing is that upon completing the reading and quiz, children earn more Obux which they can use to customize their own Space Station or purchase additional games.  My son was excited that he earned enough Obux after a visit to Mandarin Mountains to purchase a robot dog and a disco ball!

There is a lot of material on the site, and some concepts needed some additional explaining so that our 6 and 8 year old fully understood the lessons that they were being taught on the site.  That being said, the material is very well written and appealed to both of our financially savvy children and we had a lot of fun together on the website.  ING Direct promotes the site for children in grades 1 – 6.

Our family would definitely recommend Planet Orange to other families interested in teaching their children more about money.  Another additional bonus to spending some time on Planet Orange is the fact that it’s one of the few teaching sites that I’ve come across that is completely FREE!

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My 15 years as a teacher has served me well and I look forward to a new challenge this year. I’ve put together a series of workshops called Money Smart Kids. The workshops will be held at Loyalist College in Belleville, ON and children from 8 – 14 will have fun learning creative and new ways to set them on the path to becoming financially independent. Through group participation in games, activities and discussion, kids will learn where money comes from, why they need it, how to get it and finally how to manage it. We’ll also look at four key components to managing money through SPENDING, SAVING, SHARING and SCHOOLING and discuss ways to achieve financial success by looking at each component in depth. For more information on registering a child for Money Smart Kids you can contact me at jeanette@fourpiggies.com or register directly through Loyalist College in Belleville, ON.

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One of the best gifts you can give your child this Christmas season is the ability to manage their own money and it can be easy with The 4 Piggies Financial Kit for Kids.  Based on the award winning children’s book “The 4 Little Pigs”, the kit will allow your child to easily budget their own money for SPENDING, SAVING, SHARING and SCHOOLING.  Learning how to budget monetary gifts they receive during the Christmas season and gaining the ability to be financially responsible for their own money is simple with The 4 Piggies Financial Kit for Kids.   The kit comes with 4 cute and colourful piggy banks, each clearly labeled, and the award winning children’s book “The 4 Little Pigs” which depicts the story of a little boy and how he uses the money from each of his piggy banks.  For a LIMITED TIME ONLY the author has agreed to write a dedication and personal message to your child making it a very special gift this holiday season.  After you place your order, just send a quick e-mail along with the name of the child who will be receiving this very special gift to info@fourpiggies.com

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My children love to look through the Scholastic Book Orders that they bring home from school. They are both avid readers and absolutely love new books. They never ask us to buy them a book but rather run to their rooms to add up how much money they have in their SPENDING piggy banks. They often use the money to pick out a special book or two that they want. Their SPENDING piggy bank allows them to have the ability to make their own choices as to what they want to purchase. They are always eager to pore over the pages of the book orders looking for that special one that will catch their attention. After finding it, they usually circle it and keep looking until they’ve found all of the new and exciting books that they would be interested in reading. Sometimes they’ll have to make a decision and choose to wait until another month to purchase a book if they don’t have enough money in their SPENDING piggy bank to buy it yet. On the day the books that were ordered arrive at school, the kids rush home and can’t wait to share their new stories with us. They take very good care of their new books and have a great pride of ownership in the fact that they were able to purchase them with their own money.

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We are excited to announce that we’ve been nominated for the Savvy Mom Entrepreneur of the Year Award.  Winning the award would mean a $22,000 prize that would be used to expand and promote our business – Four Piggies Publishing - and give us the ability to produce more books and create more products to help teach children about money and financial responsibility.  The nomination could not have come at a better time as we have recently started to expand and offer our products for sale in retail stores as well as online through our website.
 
The link to vote for us is http://momentrepreneur.savvymom.ca/entry/2692769.  Voters are also eligible to win a $500 cash back prize provided by PayPal Canada, the presenting sponsor of the award program.  I appreciate and thank-you in advance for casting your vote and spreading the word about our nomination!

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