Money

On our way to the county fair the other evening Farm Credit had a sign out encouraging those of us whose mortgages reside with them to consider refinancing. So we called. And we are now trying to crunch numbers and estimate expenses for the coming years. We know we can swing cutting off 5 years of our mortgage, only increasing our monthly payments by about $50 and saving us about $25,000 over the course of our mortgage. This means having it paid off when Kali is 21. But it is the 10 year option that is most tantalizing for us right now! As we do with most things, we have talked about this in Kali's presence and at times in ways that hopefully she can make some sense out of. She has been clear in the past that she would like to live in this house some when it is "free." The thought of having no mortgage when Kali is 16 if we can do it financially sounds wonderful and freeing.

Well, I have no idea if those "money" conversations are part of what got Kali's wheels spinning or not but recently she wanted "Kali wants to get paid for helping out around the house" added to the family meeting agenda. That was one of the agenda items discussed at our meeting together last evening. What a surprise I was in for!

I already found myself crafting articulate responses to her about why it is important that we all pitch in and help and that I don't get paid for making meals and doing chores around the home. I was feeling disappointed at the thought of our daughter feeling the need to be paid for lifting a hand at making our life together run smoothly and to reach goals we set together. Thankfully in the context of our family meetings the person who chose the agenda item gets to "sponsor" it first and then we go around and each share something about how we feel about the agenda item or any ideas we might like to propose.

Kali's sponsorship included the following: She would like to do some jobs for money. She would like to earn money so she can pay us back for stuff. She would give us our money back so we don't have any less than we do now. She just thinks it would be fun to have her own money and then when we go to the store and buy something for her she could pay us for it. She then went on to elaborate that it would be good practice for her in being able to give away money and not always wanting to keep it. I was very glad she was looking at something other than my face at this point!! She gave the following example in her very enthusiastic, expressive way: She wants to sweep the floors for us and then we could give her $10 dollars. Then if we are in the grocery store and she sees Arthur Macaroni and Cheese (adding that it is organic, of course, and that it IS on sale but still VERY expensive) and really wants it we could buy it and then she could pay us the $10 back. At this point I'm smiling very broadly and Jason and I are communicating nonverbally to each other our delight at our daughter, sitting there articulating her desire to learn how to handle money responsibly and not to hoard it. She was so cute explaining herself to us.

So we have a little list of jobs determined that would be ones in which a "salary" could be given and have yet to pick the container in which to put her wages, which she is very clear will be our money since it will all come back to us anyway. :)