The savings lessons come later..like once they can talk, count, etc.

We’ve needed very little to teach our child about money. Most of the time, it’s just looking for teachable moments. When we are watching television, we discuss how the ads try to make stuff look better. When he gets his allowance, we talk about how he can’t take money from his “obligations” (savings/charity) to buy toys. I’ve talked with him about the good things I now do with my money, such as saving up for treats, and I’ve talked with him about mistakes I’ve made, and how I’ve been fixing those mistakes.

As for his actual allowance, we don’t need any special equipment. At the start, I had my son decide how he wanted to split his allowance. He decided to break it evenly into four categories–Long term savings, short term savings, free-to-spend & charity. He regularly sets goals for his short term savings (usually including his “free” money to save quicker), and he personally takes his savings to the bank and his donations to the charity he chose. All we use is 4 plastic baggies which works fine. There’s no need for special banks or journals.

Without listening to the actual cd, I have no clue if there’s any value to the content, but I am doubtful that it is of much use to a child. There does not appear (given the description in this review) to be a clear curriculum for parents to follow with this journal to help a child make the jump from “Oh goody, my first state quarter!” to “So THAT’S how the Rule of 72 works!” And for the parent who is also not particularly inclined towards finance, I suspect the various charts and tables will be fairly intimidating. I know that back when I was dealing with a newborn, the last thing I wanted to do was have to try and decipher a bunch of mathematic equations!

Somehow I suspect that the market for this product is well meaning friends and family, who look at the front cover, and think “How clever!”

As an avid thrift shopper, I can’t tell you how many baby journals with one page filled in that I see. This seems destined to be yet another piece of clutter.

My parents also taught me a lot about the value of a dollar by making me earn money from them by volunteering to do housework for them. Then they would make me spend my own money on things I wanted (other than food and clothes). After working so hard to get it, I was much less inclined to buy things. This also leads me to wants versus needs. Earning my own money and listening to my dad’s constant lectures taught me a lot about wants a needs. Finally, my dad got me interested in compounding interest rates. I cannot remember how many times he would fascinate me by giving examples of what $100 invested 100 years ago would be today.

I think a childrens book about money is a fantastic idea. It is only a matter of time before more books like this start popping up. I may even write one myself.

~ Jason

I’ve actually identified something that I intend to use, probably fairly soon. It’s called the Money Savvy Pig and it’s a four-chambered piggy bank, with slots for spend, save, invest, and give. There’s also a Cache Cow version of it. The website advertises coloring books and stuff to go along with it, and it’s probably time for me to order mine because my oldest is 4 now and we probably need to get more serious about teaching her about money. So far her financial education has been limited to identifying coins and knowing their relative value!

Oh good grief. I wasn’t aware that most babies had their own financial advisors these days.

This book seems like it would have a very niche market. I might be able to see it as a gift for the child of two people who are in the financial business, or for those parents who are dead-set on aggressively starting lessons for their child while they’re still in the womb (you know, the parents who are teaching foreign languages and algebra to their kid before she/he’s even born), but for anyone else, this seems like starting money lessons a bit TOO young.

And yes, you’re not the only one who is irritated at the use of the word “Munny”. To me, it seems like it is reinforcing bad spelling habits. If the child does look at the book often when he/she is a toddler, then he/she grows up seeing money spelled “munny” and that’s going to get ingrained in their learning experience. Bad idea. (For the record, I’m not very enamored towards the countless ‘clever’ misspelled brand names out there either, such as Krazy Glue, Krispy Kreme, Tastee Freez, etc., either.)