I am starting financial education for my first-grade daughter. Beyond just preventing debt.

Hello🌸
I am Meeko, a mother of a first-grade daughter and a newborn son.

I am starting a new series🆕

The theme isfinancial education

Both my husband and I grew up having received almost no financial education.
And since becoming adults, entering the workforce, and up to the present, we have lived lives often pushed around by money😅
That is exactly why I want to provide financial education to my children.

In this series, I will document that journey✏️

I am starting financial education for my first-grade daughter💰

The trigger was that since she started elementary school, my daughter has increasingly been saying things like
“I want to buy stickers” or “I want some candy.”

Until she was in kindergarten,
I would occasionally buy her things when we were out,
but she didn't want things that often,
and we would just buy her slightly more expensive toys for her birthday🎂 and Christmas🎄.

However, since she started elementary school and began playing with friends after school,
it seems she has started wanting various little things.

The currently popular sticker albums are one example,
and my past article about being pushed around by sticker albums↓ Modern stickers are expensive and hard to get💦

Also, recently“candy albums”seem to have become a trend too😅

Before candy albums became popular, in our house, we kept a stock of bagged snacks that could be shared with friends at the park after school,
and when she went out to play, I would tell her, “You can take one bag.”

But since this candy album boom started,

instead of bagged snacks to share with everyone, it seems they have started trading and eating the small candies they have stuck into candy albums of the same size (like a rate exchange).
What a hassle😅

Honestly, I feel like I've had enough of both sticker albums and candy albums😮‍💨

To be honest, my daughter didn't seem that eager to have them either.

She hasn't even asked me to buy her anything herself.

But a mom friend told me I should make a snack log for her because otherwise she's the only one who can't participate in snack exchanges.
What is that even about? 😇

I know she means well, but I can't help but feel that the age where parents have to set everything up for their children's play is over, don't you think? ❓

If you buy a lot of expensive stickers and cheap snacks for kids to play with after school, it adds up to quite a bit of money.

I wonder if it's really okay to have so much play that involves money like that. 😅

Wouldn't it be better if they just played freely on the playground equipment at the park? 🛝☀️

As things like that continued,
I started to think that just buying her whatever stickers or snacks she demanded
wasn't quite right.

It's not good for my mental health either. 😇

My husband, me, and money

Both my husband and I feel uncomfortable managing money.

Come to think of it, I have almost no memory of my parents teaching me about money.

Both my parents and my husband's parents have experience paying off their own parents' debts.
That's exactly why

・Not saddling their children with debt
・Not making them joint guarantors

seemed to be something they cared about.

But, both my husband and I are living with significant student loans, though. 😅 lol

When I was in high school, I was made to take out a large student loan without knowing anything, and it wasn't until I became an adult that I realized how difficult that was. Repayment is tough... 😭

Both my husband and I studied hard to get into affordable national universities, but we were still made to take out loans close to the maximum amount.

If I had just a little more knowledge about money back then...I definitely wouldn't have taken out that amount in loans. I think I would have planned my part-time jobs and savings much better.

I wish I had thought about it more carefully before taking them out. Since it was debt we would have to pay back ourselves in the future.

Ignorance is scary... 😓

And knowledge is power. 💪

Neither of her parents had the sense that student loans were 'debt,' and
honestly, I think we were parents with low financial literacy.

I truly believe they did their best, though.

I think our only sense of it was that as long as you didn't have debt from consumer finance companies or go bankrupt, you were fine 😂

This feeling of being pushed around by money and the sense of struggle,
I want to end that with our generation.

That is what led to this starting point.

Our family's approach

After researching various things, our family decided to proceed with financial education while using the financial education manga written by a columnist namedEmi-san as a reference.

It is incredibly educational, so I highly recommend it✨

I am truly grateful that she shares such wonderful initiatives 🙏✨

Basically, the foundation is a complete copy of Emi-san's financial education manga! 🙏

I think our own family style will grow as we move forward, though.

So, what I am about to write is also written in Emi-san's manga, but our family will introduce a full commission-based system to learn how to use money.

I felt that with a fixed allowance system, the appreciation for money and the awareness that money is something you receive by working or as a token of gratitude would not develop.

It is a form where we pay an allowance once a week for the work done.

And, we decided on the things my daughter will pay for herself.

● Things she wants to buy (toys, snacks, stickers, etc.)
● Inexpensive school supplies where her tastes might be swayed by the price (notebooks, pens, etc.)
● Lesson fees (we plan to collect 50 to 200 yen per month depending on the lesson)

How to sort money

Money is divided into four categories.

1. For the wallet (daily use)
2. For the piggy bank (medium-term savings; for when she wants to buy something a bit expensive)
3. For the bank (long-term savings; investments also come from here)
4. For donations

It's not just about what our parents told us—ensuring our child doesn't "end up in debt"—but going beyond that.
Going further.

• About money
• How to earn money
• How to spend money
• How to save money
• How to circulate money (investing)

I want to make sure I teach her all of this properly.

While using Emi-san's financial education manga as a reference,
our family also wants to work on this through trial and error.

Together with my daughter,
and learning together as a couple.

What kind of future will this challenge lead to?
I want to keep a record of it.💪