How to Teach Kids Smart Money Habits with Stephen Day

Should you pay your kids an allowance for doing their chores?

This week on the Collide Kids Podcast, host Christen Clark sits down with Dr. Stephen Day—economics professor, author, and Christian dad—for an energetic and practical discussion on raising Christian kids who are confident with money, generous in spirit, and purposeful in their spending and saving. Discover how to create “mini economies” at home, teach your children to save in meaningful ways, and use ordinary chores to spark spiritual growth and discipleship in your family.

Resources:

• drstephenday.com
• Book: Teach a Kid to Save
• @_paperrobots
• Website: collidekidspodcast.com
• Instagram: @collidekidspod

Clip Finder:

Teaching Kids About Value

"So it's not just about bugging the parents for screen time. It's about, you know, do I want to save up to get something better later, like a toy, or do I want to spend my money on screen time now?"

— Stephen Day [00:09:18 → 00:09:30]

Building Lifelong Habits

Quote: "changing your habits can be a little bit intimidating, but kids need to start setting different habits, and it starts with the family practice together so that it's not just deciding at the last second, do we buy this, do we buy that? No, like, you have plans ahead of time. And you're a little more intentional about what you do. And I think the kids carry those habits on into adulthood. I know I did."

— Stephen Day [00:09:50 → 00:10:11]

The Importance of Skill in Chores 

"What I find is that chores work better when there is some skill involved. That's something parents often miss."

— Stephen Day [00:10:43 → 00:10:49]

Teaching Kids Responsibility

 "You can, right, have categories where you say this work is family work, you do it because it's your responsibility, and this work is your job and you do it because, because kids need to learn the connection between work and money and their choices. It's a, it's a teaching thing."

— Stephen Day [00:12:12 → 00:12:27]

Parenting Hack

"When you're trying to teach your children, involve them, and it'll take longer at first because they're learning their skill, but over time they're able to do it, and that can be part of their household job that they get paid for."

— Stephen Day [00:14:14 → 00:14:26]

Teaching Kids About Money Management  

"The first fruit of everything that we make goes to God. Next, we had to save, you know, and you can either have the kids save for a goal or you can have them save a certain percentage."

— Stephen Day [00:17:32 → 00:17:41]

Training Kids to Avoid Impulse Buying

 "I want to take away their ability to do impulse buys when they're a small child because they're still developing control of their impulses. And so they need to get those habits that all good spending is planned spending."

— Stephen Day [00:22:02 → 00:22:17]

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Transcript

Christen Clark [00:00:21]:

Let's do it! Hey y'all, welcome to the Collide Kids Podcast. I'm your host, Christen Clark. The Collide Kids Podcast is a show for kids and families where we learn together how life and faith collide. By the way, if you're a parent who's listening, if you haven't checked out my other podcast, 7 Minute Devotions for Busy Parents, this is your reminder. We're in a brand new season where we're talking all about identity in Christ, because when we know who we are in Christ, it helps how we live and how we parent. So each episode is just 7 minutes long. It's filled with encouragement and truth for busy moms and dads. So if you are a busy mom or dad, I hope you will take some time to check that out.

Christen Clark [00:01:07]:

I think you'll really like it. Okay, I have to start today's episode with a question that might cause a little bit of a debate in your house. Are you ready? Should kids get paid to do chores? Now I know some of you just said, "Absolutely!" And some of you said, No way, they live here, come on. And some of you are thinking, wait, am I supposed to be paying them? Well, today's episode is such a good one because we are talking about kids, money, saving and spending, and how we can raise children who are wise and confident with what God has entrusted to us. So I sat down with Stephen Day. He is an author and he's an economics professor and the director of the Center for Economic Education at Virginia Commonwealth University. Isn't that awesome? And he's someone who has helped hundreds of teachers create mini economies in their classrooms. But what I love most is he runs a mini economy in his own home with his own kids.

Christen Clark [00:02:07]:

So this isn't just a theory, this is real life. And we had such a fun and practical conversation today about how to teach saving in a way that actually sticks with kids and how to help kids understand earning and generosity and responsibility. Stephen has been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today for his work on teaching kids about money. And he has a new book, Teaching Kids to Save. I really appreciated how practical and doable these ideas are for families. And so if you've ever wondered, when should my child start learning about money? Let me tell you something. This episode is for you. So here is my conversation with Stephen Day.

Christen Clark [00:02:43]:

Stephen Day, thank you so much for being on the Collide Kids podcast today.

Stephen Day [00:02:59]:

Hi, Christen. Thanks for having me.

Christen Clark [00:03:01]:

Yeah, this is great. I'm excited to talk to you today about all the things that you are passionate about and your book. Would you just introduce yourself to our listeners? Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Stephen Day [00:03:12]:

Sure. So I'm Stephen Day. I teach economics at Virginia Commonwealth University. And also I teach teachers how to teach about money. And I do this with the Virginia Council on Economic Education, and we just try to help teachers do a better job teaching their kids in their class about how money works.

Christen Clark [00:03:32]:

That's amazing. So you're teaching like college-level teachers or you're teaching like for elementary teachers and middle school teachers?

Stephen Day [00:03:38]:

I do all the levels. I have a special economics class for future elementary and high school teachers both.

Christen Clark [00:03:45]:

Oh, that's awesome.

Stephen Day [00:03:46]:

Yeah, so they have to take this class in college and a lot of them don't like it, but I do the version where they can— where I say like, if you come to my class, you're gonna be a better teacher and I'm gonna show you interesting and fun things to do in the classroom.

Christen Clark [00:03:58]:

That's awesome. Okay, well I'm excited to talk with you about this because I know a lot of parents that are listening right now, when you said money and their ears perked up because we need to learn about this, I need to learn about this. So even if no one is listening today, gets anything out of it. I hope that I will. But before we do that, because this is a show for kids, I always ask my guests to tell me a joke. So do you have a joke for us today?

Stephen Day [00:04:21]:

Oh, sure. It's a joke about animals. So it's for kids that know a lot about animals.

Christen Clark [00:04:26]:

Okay.

Stephen Day [00:04:27]:

So why do flamingos stand on one leg?

Christen Clark [00:04:30]:

Oh, I don't know.

Stephen Day [00:04:31]:

Because if they didn't stand on any legs, they'd fall down.

Christen Clark [00:04:34]:

That is, that is true. That is true.

Stephen Day [00:04:37]:

Now, This is an important joke because I told this joke as part of a joke telling business that we had with our lemonade stand when I was a little kid. Like, I didn't want to only make money on lemonade. I tried to make extra money telling jokes, and that was one of the jokes that I told and got paid for it.

Christen Clark [00:04:55]:

I love that. Okay, so how much did you charge per joke?

Stephen Day [00:04:58]:

It was a long time— it was 5 cents per joke, which I think in today's money that would be more like 15 or 20 cents.

Christen Clark [00:05:05]:

Okay, that reminds me of like, uh, Lucy from Peanuts who had the, like, the counseling stand for— like, she would give out advice for 5 cents. So there you go, you're giving out jokes.

Stephen Day [00:05:16]:

Yeah, and Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes too. Oh yeah, my mom, my mom had just gone grocery shopping and my brother said, I'm gonna start a business, because my dad was always talking about how starting a business was a good thing. So my brother just took our family groceries and tried to sell them to us, but my dad When we finally opened our lemonade stand, he made us pay all the cost of the lemonade. And that's why I had to tell the jokes, because we weren't making enough money just selling the lemonade.

Christen Clark [00:05:45]:

Yes, because a lot of times you don't think of— when you start a business, there's cost to start. Like, there's things you have to do. You have to buy the product, you have to buy the advertisement. Even if that's a poster board and a marker, you— there's still things that you have to do. So people don't think about all that kind of stuff. So that's really smart of your dad that he helped you guys learn that. Is that where you got your passion for spending and business and all of that is from your dad?

Stephen Day [00:06:10]:

Yeah. Well, my dad was in kind of the same line of work that I'm in, and he showed us how to make this mini economy, this play economy. Uh, we, when I was a little kid, we actually had a play economy too, and that taught me the real basics of how to— of money and business. And I wanted to pass that on to families nowadays. So that's why I wrote Teach a Kid to Save. And yeah, it really came— it was originally my dad's idea.

Christen Clark [00:06:36]:

That's really cool. And so you wrote this book about a mini economy. Explain that a little bit because some people might be listening like, what, what is this about? Tell us about your book.

Stephen Day [00:06:46]:

Kids develop habits about money when they're elementary age. Mm-hmm. And but that's the age that we tend to miss teaching kids about money.. And sometimes when we do teach kids about money, we maybe have an allowance or maybe we teach them lessons, but the kids don't really get practice, the practice that they need to develop strong money habits. And they rarely get practice as producers, right? Sometimes they'll make— they'll have an allowance and they'll spend the money. But, you know, I think parents need more of a system to give their kids the practice that they need. And so I made this kind of household system where both parents and kids have chores and they get paid in play money, and then they buy and sell things at the household store. Fun! And it's pretty easy to set up.

Stephen Day [00:07:33]:

I show you how to do it in the book, but what it does is it creates family conversations and it allows the whole family to talk about money and allows kids to imagine what's going on in a way that they usually don't get to.

Christen Clark [00:07:45]:

That's true, because especially when kids are younger, like you said, when they're elementary, Parents maybe would shield them from understanding a lot of things about money, or we just give them money, like, or they get— they always go to grandparents' house and they get $20 and they're like ready to go spend it right away. So tell me a little bit about the system you're talking about. Tell me what— how would you set that up? What are some tips that you have for parents who are like, okay, I'm interested in this?

Stephen Day [00:08:08]:

Yeah, so in the book I start with a quick start guide. Like if you just wanna do this little system for a couple weeks as a game, you can. It doesn't need to— change your life. But what you do is you, you assign jobs, and it works better when everybody works together. That's just one of the many kind of lessons that you pick up along the way. But the little kids get to color and design the play money in the house, and then both parents and kids get paid in play money. After everyone gets paid, then the kids have a choice. Are they going to spend on something little now or are they going to save for something big later? Mhm.

Stephen Day [00:08:46]:

And they have to sort of set their savings goals. And since everybody does this at the same time, you have your little household store where you have maybe dollar store items or privileges. The parents can sell coupons for privileges, like stuff that parents often say no to but sometimes say yes to. Like, this way the parent doesn't have to make choices all the time about whether I'm in a good mood or not, or, you know, can just be the kids can buy a coupon for the extra screen time or whatever. And, um, that way it means that the kid has to decide how valuable that is to them. Hmm. Uh, so it's not just about bugging the parents for screen time. It's about, you know, do I want to save up to get something better later, like a toy, or do I want to spend my money on screen time now?

Christen Clark [00:09:30]:

Yeah.

Stephen Day [00:09:31]:

What I notice is that parents can be a little intimidated because it doesn't take a lot of time, but it takes some intentional planning. Yeah, you have to decide what you're going to do ahead of time. You have to sort of change your habits. But what I found out is that that's exactly what you're trying to do, you know? Yeah. Um, changing your habits can be a little bit intimidating, but kids need to start setting different habits, and it starts with the family practice together so that it's not just deciding at the last second, do we buy this, do we buy that? No, like, you have plans ahead of time. And you're a little more intentional about what you do. And I think the kids carry those habits on into adulthood. I know I did.

Stephen Day [00:10:11]:

I show teachers how to do it in their classrooms. So we've observed it working in other places. So I think it can work for parents. That's why I wrote Teach a Kid to Save, because I think that parents can really get something from this.

Christen Clark [00:10:24]:

Absolutely. So this sounds like a really elaborate chore chart. Is that what this is, or is it more than that?

Stephen Day [00:10:29]:

No, it's not an elaborate chore chart. Um, we, we give each kid some pretty simple jobs, and each job has a job title, and that way people have responsibility for what they do each week. And what I find is that chores work better when there is some skill involved. That's something parents often miss. Um, I talk about this a lot in the book, and the importance of skill and competence in setting up chores, because a lot of times we just assign the kids jobs that are drudgery, like pick up your stuff Yeah, and they definitely should. And there's an aspect of that in every job. There's always cleanup. But then it's important that parents set up creative jobs and creative work.

Stephen Day [00:11:11]:

But elaborate? No, it's not elaborate. Again, it just takes a little bit of intentionality, which takes a little bit of learning.

Christen Clark [00:11:18]:

Yeah. So I know for me growing up, my parents would give us an allowance, but it wasn't always— it wasn't always tied to like a job or chores. How do you feel about that? Like about allowance and that being a part of like being paid for chores and things like this. What do you think about that?

Stephen Day [00:11:35]:

Oh, good question. This— that question is at the center of every debate about how kids should be taught about money. And, you know, there's pretty strong camps. Like, some parents say absolutely not, kids should not be paid for chores, they should do their family work. Mm-hmm. You know, their family work is their responsibility. And then there's other parents that say yes, do pay for chores. I'd be interested— maybe that's a family conversation that they could pause the podcast right now and talk about that in the van.

Christen Clark [00:12:04]:

Everyone has an opinion right now.

Stephen Day [00:12:06]:

Yeah, yeah, right now. I, I find that the stakes are not that high in this discussion because you can actually just do both. You can, right, have categories where you say this work is family work, you do it because it's your responsibility, and this work is your job and you do it because, because kids need to learn the connection between work and money and their choices. It's a, it's a teaching thing. There's also a third category, which is service work. Our church had the— our Start with Service week a couple weeks ago. Um, you have your church service work, we go out and help the community. So I think kids should also learn that we serve as citizens and as church members as well.

Christen Clark [00:12:43]:

Absolutely. Not everything you do needs to be paid for. Sometimes we do things because that's our purpose, or that's what God's put in us. Or like you said, it's part of being a part of the family. That's what we say in my family. Like, there are chores that I'll pay my kids for because they're above and beyond. But you know, if you live here, we all make dirt on the floor and we all use dishes. And so we all contribute to those chores, so we don't get paid for those.

Christen Clark [00:13:06]:

So we say your payment is you get to live here and you get to eat food with us. I think it's interesting though that you said it's about their skill. Talk a little bit about that. How do parents determine what a kid's skill level is and what they're good at and how that fits into, uh, this mini economy idea.

Stephen Day [00:13:23]:

Yeah. And that's another one of those things that it's not hard to do, but it takes a little bit of planning and thinking. And again, that's why I wrote it into Teach a Kid to Save, because I noticed myself struggling with these things. Kids— it's— there's a word for it. It's called progressive tax complexity, which is— oh, things are difficult for us at a certain age because we need to stretch to do them. It takes a new skill. But then as you get older and you get good at it, then it becomes easy. And so you could— you learn a new skill.

Stephen Day [00:13:52]:

So I find out that things where a parent could just do it faster if he or she did it herself, those are actually the things where you should involve the kids.

Christen Clark [00:14:02]:

Hmm.

Stephen Day [00:14:02]:

Because yeah, you— I mean, you will go slower, right? And, and well, yeah, if you're really just trying to get something done, you know, you're trying to get the meal cooked, you're trying to get the thing fixed, just do it yourself. When you're trying to teach your children, involve them, and it'll take longer at first because they're learning their skill, but over time they're able to do it, and that can be part of their household job that they get paid for. Mm-hmm. And that payment signals that they're competent, that they've developed some expertise, and that's really motivating. You know, one reason why kids don't wanna do chores is because there's no skill. It can be kind of isolating, like, go clean your room. They don't understand the point. I mean, nobody wants to do these things.

Stephen Day [00:14:44]:

You know, you think about the worst parts of your job. It's so tough as a mature adult to get yourself to do it. Right. And kids are more impulsive than adults. So it's, it's, and sometimes we blame the kids too. We're like, well, you know, their, their heart's not in it. It's like, well, yeah, but we want to set them up for success. So if you teach them, if you, if we work together to develop new skills and learn new tools, it's really enriching.

Stephen Day [00:15:08]:

The kids love it. They get better at stuff over time., and their work becomes more valuable, then you can pay them more. Give them a raise.

Christen Clark [00:15:15]:

They deserve it. There you go. I love that. And I also think it's good, you know, as we're teaching our kids to do these things, to affirm things that we see in them. So if we see them doing a good job at something, telling them like, wow, this is a skill that you have. Like, not everybody's good. That's like, for my daughter, she's very organized. Like, she likes to take all her toys or all her things in her room and put them in little bins and, and label everything.

Christen Clark [00:15:39]:

And She did not get that from me. And so there have been times where I'm like, okay, I will pay you to organize this part of the kitchen or to organize something. And she does it amazing. And I, I always make sure to let her know, like, you are so good at this. Like, this is a gift that you have. And so for us as parents, it's not just about, you know, letting them watch all the things we do. Sometimes there's gonna be things that they're better at than we are, and we let them see that that's a good thing in them and call out those things we see. Speak life into them, I think that'll make a big difference too.

Stephen Day [00:16:10]:

At the end of each chapter of Teach a Kid to Save, there's, uh, what I call the Think and Teach section. It has questions for parents, questions for kids, and then lessons for kids. And one of the lessons for kids is, the work I do helps others. And I don't know if kids really consider that when their parents go off to work, that they're helping other people. That they're going out there and serving and they get paid for it. I don't think actually the parents quite remember that all the time, you know? The work we do helps others.

Christen Clark [00:16:40]:

That's so true. So let's talk a little bit about teaching kids about saving and about money. I love this idea of using this in the home, but what are some things that we can help our kids understand? Like, what are some main principles that your book talks about as far as saving and, and really understanding what money is all about?

Stephen Day [00:16:59]:

Well, I, I got a lot of this from my parents when I was a kid, and some of this stuff has not changed over the years. I mean, when I was a kid and I would do— when I was, I think, 6, my job was to sweep the front sidewalk, and I got paid a quarter because, again, it was the '80s and money was worth more then. You got paid, got paid less, and I had to pay 10% to tithe first. Okay, you know, when we had our little tithe box and my mom and dad said You know, that 10% of it goes straight to tithe, and we— this is the Lord's money. The first fruit of everything that we make goes to God. Next, we had to save, you know, and you can either have the kids save for a goal or you can have them save a certain percentage. One thing that that does is it both those categories— taxes and— not taxes, um, we actually have taxes in our mini economy. Oh really? Yeah, tithing, saving, and we have taxes where the family saves up for something that we enjoy together.

Stephen Day [00:17:56]:

Oh, interesting. But those let's gets kids in the habit that money has responsibility. Money has— each— your different parts of your paycheck have different jobs. It's not just all for spending, right? And when the kids get in habits of when they get money, they have these different responsibilities, and they can grow towards their goals over time. That builds the habits, that builds their autonomy, that builds their capability of managing money over time. So when they become 18 and all these credit cards are thrust into their face when they're at college, they have the habits in place.

Christen Clark [00:18:30]:

Yeah, I love that you do taxes because that's always the biggest shock when you first get a job and you're like, wait, where did all the money go?

Stephen Day [00:18:39]:

Oh, Christen, when I got my first job teaching high school, I, I got a paycheck, $1,800, and I was like, this is the most money I have seen in my life. And I went out and bought some new soccer cleats. And I wore those things one time and I left them at the soccer field and lost them. No. Yeah. And then I paid my taxes and then I paid my bills and I learned that my parents had been paying for a lot of stuff that I didn't know they'd been paying for. And I ran out of money and I was like, how could I have $1,800 and run out of money? And that's why— actually, that's one reason why you need a mini economy, because kids— it's difficult to model money as parents. Because we earn so much more money than the kids do.

Stephen Day [00:19:23]:

And for them, they don't understand how we can earn maybe a few thousand dollars in a month and still say we don't have enough money for this ice cream or this treat, you know? Right. Like, that's— I know you're tricking me. It can't be true. But when you, when you get paid the same amount of play money together in a little family economy, then all of a sudden the parents can model spending habits because you're spending the same amount of money.

Christen Clark [00:19:49]:

Right, yeah. And then I love that you said the taxes go towards something that's for the family. So we're thinking about like how that benefits other people, because that's what, that's what taxes are, or should be, is it's for the benefit of where you live. And so that's, that's part of it.

Stephen Day [00:20:03]:

I was telling my cousin about the book, and at first she was horrified that there were taxes because she was like, so you just take the kids' money? And I was like, well, no, in theory the money is used for the community, you know. But we get together and have a family meeting and we say, what are we going to save up for as a family using tax money? And then we decide if the taxes are going to be high or low. Last summer we were going to buy a trampoline, and so we had high taxes, um, because it was expensive. And this year we're saving up to go to the amusement park. So that's what our tax money is going to.

Christen Clark [00:20:35]:

I love that. That's such a great idea. So for parents who might be intimidated by this whole idea, like, they're like, I know we need to do this, I know we need to teach our kids about money and set up this idea. What's the simplest version that they could start with this week? Like, what's something they could do right now?

Stephen Day [00:20:51]:

Okay, what you can do right now is spend or save Friday. Okay, the kids do their, do their jobs and get paid, and then you just have the choice. Are you gonna buy something little right now, or are we going to get something better later? And this is something that even very small children can do, like kindergarten age kids. I got this idea from a kindergarten teacher. That was her version of a mini economy for her kindergartners. Another thing you can do is just do a 2-week mini economy challenge. I show you how to do it in chapter 1 of Teach a Kid to Save. Okay, um, so I try to make it easy for parents.

Stephen Day [00:21:29]:

And then also throughout the book, there's just like takeaways and principles that you get even if you're not doing a home economy system, right? Um, what I find from doing this is that just having a plan for what we do with money makes all the difference. Like, I don't do impulse buys with the kids at all. Like, the, the rule is when we go into the store, we, we decide ahead of time what we want. We don't let the store tell us what we want. If we do see something new that we want, we wait. We don't get it then, we get it later. I want to take away their ability to do impulse buys when they're a small child because they're still developing control of their impulses. And so they need to get those habits that all good spending is planned spending.

Stephen Day [00:22:17]:

So if you're just doing something this week, like if you haven't bought Teach a Kid to Save, just turn off the podcast and remember that all good spending is planned spending. Yes, we, we go over the shopping list with the kids. We say what's on the list. We say out out loud what's not on the list. Say, "Kids, what is not on this shopping list that we know is in the store?" That's right. My oldest daughter, she got tired of my wife saying, "It's not on my list." And so she just shouted one day in the store, "It's on my list!" That's— she didn't even know how to write yet. She was in preschool and she was just sort of scribbling on a piece of paper. And this is my list.

Christen Clark [00:22:57]:

Yeah, my kids are in middle school now and they know if they want something It has to be on the list. And they'll say, did you get what such and such? I'm like, was it on the list? Nope. Then I didn't get— so I want them to also be proactive about thinking through those things too. It reminds me of that YouTube, I think there's like a YouTube video somewhere where it's just a person filming random items that are found throughout the store that are not in the right place. So like, it'll be like a aisle of vegetables and there's like a, a thing of cookies or there's like a little toy sitting next to the, cleaning supplies, and they'll just point out— says, someone's mom said no. And then you'll go to the next place and see it again, someone's mom said no. And so we always point at that, like when you see random things that are not in the right place, someone's mom said—

Stephen Day [00:23:39]:

someone's mom said no.

Christen Clark [00:23:39]:

I love it. Well, Stephen, where can our listeners find your book?

Stephen Day [00:23:44]:

My website is drstephenday.com. D-R-S-T-E-P-H-E-N. Stephen the way God spells it in the book of Acts. Drstephenday.com. And also there you have free downloadable templates so you can get a savings chart where the kids can draw their savings goals. Um, money templates, pre-cutout coupons. So you— and those are all for free, and you just download those from my website. You can link to the book there, which is called Teach a Kid to Save.

Stephen Day [00:24:11]:

It's on Revel, which is Baker Publishing Group, and you can find that book wherever books are sold— Amazon, Baker's website, um, request it from your local bookstore. And you can sign up for my blog on Substack, which is called Paper Robots. Helping families talk about money and work. And every 2 weeks I send out just a little write-up about economics, personal finance, and how families can apply that knowledge.

Christen Clark [00:24:35]:

All those resources, that's just right there. So anybody that has questions, you can ask a real professor how to do it.

Stephen Day [00:24:42]:

Oh yeah, email me, I would love to reply. You can find me on Instagram, um, underscore Paper Robots on Instagram.

Christen Clark [00:24:49]:

Awesome. And we'll put all these links in our show notes as well, so our listeners can find that. So we'll, we'll definitely check that out. Well, thank you so much for doing this today. Before I let you go, I always ask my guests to tell me a memory from when they were a kid. So what memory do you have to share with us today?

Stephen Day [00:25:05]:

Okay, well, staying on brand, my parents started their mini economy and my mom sold coupons in our store for go on a bike ride with dad, go on a jog with dad, go shoot baskets with dad. And my dad came home one day and found out that all his sons— there were 4 of us— had bought these coupons. And so, same day, it was a lot of exercise for him. And my mom found out, well, she wanted her husband to get more exercise, she wanted the kids, you know, she'd get the house to herself. Yeah, she found out that she could write as many of these coupons as she wanted to, so she just made a bunch and they were selling for cheap. And my dad would come back home from work all tired and there would be all his kids just waving these coupons in the air, time for you to go run, Dad. And he finally had a talk with, with my mom. He said, "Heather, can we please at least raise the price on these things?" Raise the price.

Christen Clark [00:25:57]:

That's awesome. I love that. Great story. Your poor dad. Well, Stephen, thank you so much for being on the show today.

Stephen Day [00:26:02]:

This was great. Christen, it's been so much fun. Thank you for having me.

Christen Clark [00:26:15]:

I am so interested to know what is the conversation like in your car right now or with your family. What do you guys think of having a household store or starting this idea of a mini economy? I think it's such a fun idea, and I think it will create family conversations. And like Stephen said, it allows kids to better understand how money works and how to set goals and save. Another great reminder, Stephen said, kids should always learn that we serve, that work is not just about getting paid, or about getting privileges. It's about giving back to others and being generous. And he gave us such a good reminder that money has different responsibilities. Not all money that comes in is for spending. And so we're teaching kids their different places that their money goes, and that's very helpful for them to understand how it works, and it builds their capability of managing money over time.

Christen Clark [00:27:06]:

The main point is having a plan when it comes to money is what makes all the difference. All good spending, is planned spending. I feel like I need that on a plaque somewhere in my house. We all need to be reminded that we need to be better at planning how we're gonna use our money. Such good information. I highly recommend you check out his book. And if you wanna head over to his website, drstephenday.com, like he said, it was Stephen with a P-H as God spells it in the book of Acts. So check out those free templates and resources, and you can find information about his book there.

Christen Clark [00:27:39]:

We're gonna have all those links in our show notes as well to make it easier for you to find or remember it later. Well, I hope this conversation gave you something simple that you can carry into your family rhythms this week. Maybe a new way to talk about money at the dinner table, or a small step toward teaching saving or generosity, or even just some thoughtful questions to ask your kids about earning and money and responsibilities. These everyday money conversations are actually discipleship moments, and they can shape how our kids see stewardship and what it means to be faithful, faithful, faithful. With what God has given us. And I just want you to know, I'm so passionate about putting resources like this in front of families because you don't have to figure this out alone. There are wise voices and practical tools and resources that can support you, and I love getting to bring those to you through this podcast. So thank you so much for listening.

Christen Clark [00:28:31]:

It really is an honor to serve your family this way. Hey, be sure to come back next week. I have an exciting episode with a friend who who— let's just say she's really passionate about cheese balls. Yeah, you heard that right. So come back next week. You're going to love my episode with Molly Sanborn. Thanks for listening today. Have a great week.

Christen Clark [00:28:52]:

If you love today's episode, share it with a friend and follow us on social media at Collide Kids Pod so you don't miss what's next. You can find more episodes and resources at collidekidspodcast.com, and leave a quick rating and review. That really helps other families find out about the show. Thanks so much for being a part of the Collide Kids podcast. And in case no one has told you today, God loves you so much. See you next time.