My sister sent Keira a birthday card this year with $20 inside. I didn’t know this before it arrived and so was as surprised as my daughter when that red note slipped out from the torn envelope.
“Look at this!” cried Keira. “CASH!!!!!”
And she waved that thing around like it was one of Willy Wonka’s Golden Tickets.
Indeed, as I probably would’ve done as well. I mean, who doesn’t like getting money for a present? Especially when it’s unexpected! Sweet!
Ever since, Keira has been walking around with it in her pocket – and sometimes not, I’ve found it on the floor a couple of times. “This is mine now,” I say, picking it up.
“No!”
“Then look after it a bit better, please.”
Every shop we’ve walked she’s stopped and asked any number of these questions, in any order:
“Can I buy this? How much is it? How much money will I have left over?”
I don’t know why, but the things she’s interested in purchasing have been either nasty tat from $2 shops or things she already has.
“Can I have these?”
“Keira – you just got a whole bunch of stickers for your birthday!”
Lord knows what’s going to happen once she’s old enough to shop on her own. That’s why I think I’ll accompany her on every shopping expedition until she’s sixteen.
My husband wasn’t helping either. “Why don’t we see if she wants to bank it?” I said.
Keira was listening and they both gave me a look of disdain. Easy to see who takes after the other.
“In a savings account? Not this day in age,” said my husband. “No shares, either. Best be a term deposit.”
My daughter still wasn’t impressed and I could just imagine leading her into a bank and she’d fight me at the tellers and cause a scene just like the run on the banks in Mary Poppins.
In the end, she bought me, Riley and herself a little morning tea and still has some leftover. That she was generous with her first independent act of money spending still has me smiling.
Yet, she still insists she needs a sparkly tiara with a raised rose trim. As you do.
When you’re five.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Great story! And I had to laugh cos my mum recently sent my 5 year old boy a $20, unexpectedly! We took him off to our credit union and he is now a one-share shareholder with online banking!
Mind you, one glance at a boring online banking page and he was back to the ABC kids website 
Haha….well, it’s never too early to start learning the value of cold hard cash!!!
Ah cash… my girls are well into cash!
They know the power of money and they know that if it is ‘their money’ they can buy with it stuff I don’t like and therefore wouldn’t buy. Thankfully they can’t ‘save’ for the life of them, so the singing Diamond Castle Barbie aint gonna enter my house any time soon!
Five years old…she knows what $20 is all right!
Oh my. It is VERY nice that she treated you for tea! Fortunately my kids’ money gifts come as checks. And we don’t tell them the amounts! We let them each buy something they want and bank the rest.
The very idea of the singing Diamond Castle Barbie makes me feel faint.