October 30, 2024 • 12 mins
It’s October, and you know what that means—spooky season is officially here!
Between costumes, parties, and the excitement of trick-or-treating, your kids are about to score a mountain of candy. But what if you could turn that sugar stash into more than just a sweet treat?
This Halloween, let’s use all that candy to sneak in some fun, practical lessons about money management! Join me for six creative ways to introduce your kids to essential money concepts.
Anna's Takeaways:
- Using Halloween Candy to Teach Money Lessons (02:42)
- Motivation and Effort for Candy (04:48)
- Saving vs. Spending Concepts (05:51)
- Budgeting vs. Binging (07:41)
- Teaching the Concept of Taxes (08:41)
- Investing Concepts with Candy (09:11)
- Charitable Intentions and Sharing (10:44)
- Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts
- Money Boss Parents! Welcome to Anna's Money Boss Parent podcast, your go-to resource for mastering money management while raising a family. Join me as we explore practical tips, expert insights, and inspiring stories to help you achieve financial success and create a brighter future for your loved ones.
- Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show to support our mission of empowering parents like you to take charge of their finances and build a prosperous life for their families. Let's thrive together on this incredible journey!
- Links mentioned in this episode
FREE GUIDE- Kid Money Boss: School isn’t teaching my son about Money. It’s up to us Parents. Here are 9 tools I am using to team my son, everything I never learned as a kid.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Anna Sergunina (00:01):
Hey, Money Bosses. Anna is here, and
welcome back to the Money BossPodcast. I am excited for this
episode. I'm excited for all theepisodes, but this one should be
fun, because I want to reallyuse this theme of holidays
upcoming and start to kind of becreative how we teach money
(00:24):
lessons to our kids. So let'stalk a little bit about how
Halloween candy, and I know it'scoming down the road, could be
used to start introducing thesemoney concepts that we've been
talking about for quite sometime on the podcast already. So
with that in mind, I knowthere's a lot of promotion going
(00:49):
on at the moment. People arestarting to put up their
Halloween decorations. Iactually am going to dig that up
this evening and start to eventhough it's like just the
beginning of the month ofOctober, it's going to be here
before we know it. And somethingreally fun that we are doing
(01:12):
this year is that, well, firstof all, we're going to see my
family on the east coast, butalso going to spend the
Halloween with them, and it'sbeen years. We've lived in
California for 10 years now.It's been years since I was
actually in Maryland for theHalloween. I love all the fall,
(01:35):
and so looking forward to that.So I already know we're going to
have a lot of Halloween candy,because my family, my brother,
has kids, and I know we're goingto go trick or treating, so I
want you to kind of think aboutAll right, here's what's
(01:56):
happening with the kids, and Ithink this, if I further think
about this concept, how do weuse the candy as a teaching
lesson? The kids, probably ofall ages, can benefit from this.
I've been talking quite a bitwith you about the different
types of accounts you can set upand and the three jars concept
(02:20):
and introducing allowance. Sokeep those concepts in the back
of your head while we kind ofgoing through that. So here are
my kind of six ways, slashanalogies, how you can use
Halloween candy to learn moreabout what your kids are
understanding about money, andstart to introduce these
(02:44):
concepts to them and make themmore real. Because which kid out
there in the world doesn't likecandy? I don't think I can find
anyone. So here we go. Okay,I've got six ideas for you. So
number one is, how motivated areyour kids to work for this
(03:04):
candy? I know everybody lovesit, but How hard are they
willing to work so, you know,granted that you had already
purchased them a costume orcreated one from scratch
yourself. I wish I was thathandy. What are they willing to
do in order for you to take themout for trick or treating,
(03:27):
right? Or even buy them acostume? Of course, I'm lacking
ideas at the moment for myalmost three year old, but and
he's been telling me, it'sfunny, he's been telling me
lately that he does not want togo trick or treating. I'm not
sure what that's about. He onlyhas really two years of
(03:51):
experience doing that, probablyjust something he watched on
YouTube about Halloween beingscary. But I'm still going to
figure out a way for him toearn, right, this opportunity to
go out and Trick or treat, or anopportunity for us to spend
money and buy him the costume,so it's not something that it's
(04:16):
expected right every year forthe parents to do. So I wonder,
what is it that you're going todo to motivate them to actually
earn this awesome, awesomeexperience. So that's number
one. Number two, let's talkabout saving versus spending
concept, and if we're usingcandy as a currency. So our
(04:40):
currency here is candy, and kidsunderstand that concept very
well. Is there any candy left intheir blow buckets before you
get home for trick or treating.So look at that right, and then
talk to them about theseconcepts, right? When you have a
(05:00):
lot of candy, and that's what'sgoing to happen on that night.
What do you do with it? Do youjust eat all of it on that one
night? And maybe you eat morethan normal. But is there an
opportunity for you to introducethe idea of maybe putting some
(05:20):
of that candy aside and comeback to tomorrow, right? Or come
back to it, or save it for forthe rest of the week, so that
you can enjoy it a little bitevery day. I think the three
jars concept would be really,really handy in this, because
that includes the save, spendand give jar. You know, maybe if
(05:45):
they spread them out, evenbuying those jars would be
really cool. I will include thelink in the show notes. I have
found a really inexpensiveplastic jars on Amazon that have
a little lid and it has a selectfor you to drop points. I don't
think you can put candy, but youcan still probably use those
(06:10):
jars to accomplish the samething. So go back and listen to
that episode. I think it's areally handy for this particular
concept. But I can almost seehow like using the candy,
spreading it out into thesethree jars. And you know, maybe
some of the candy you can giveaway to mommy and daddy, right,
(06:34):
two days from now. Or you can,you know, you can eat whatever
it is that you designated tospending, which is your eating
bucket, and then the one you'resaving you're going to keep for
a little bit. So I hope thatmakes sense. Number three on my
(06:54):
list is budgeting versusbinging. So introduce the daily
limit on how much candy can theyeat per day, right? And compare
that to real money. So if youhave five pieces of candy you
are allowed to eat from thatbatch that you collected on the
Halloween night. How long isthat going to last you? And the
(07:19):
same thing, if you had $5 or $50or whatever that number is, how
long is that going to last you?Can you spend $5 every day?
Maybe you buy a cup of coffee ora lunch or something like that.
So use the candy as the currencyto start to introduce that
(07:39):
being, you know, having a planversus, just like eating it all
right? And again, I'm not, afternot giving kids the opportunity
to enjoy this holiday by anymeans, but trying to create this
parallel between smart moneydecisions and lessons for the
(07:59):
kids and using candy as a fun,fun currency. Okay, number four
is, how do we teach them thetax? How do we teach them that
money that we make candy that weget on our trick or treating
trip is going to have to have atax and so maybe lay out an
example where they have 10pieces, and then two out of
(08:24):
those pieces are going to gointo a tax bucket, right? So
that's they don't get to keep 10pieces of the candy, because
that's how it works in reallife. Again, that way, when the
real life comes up and they geta paycheck, a real paycheck,
they're not expected to keep100% of it, because that's how
(08:48):
it works in real life. Sointroduce the tax component as
well. Number five, introduce theinvesting component. So if we
did continue with the three jarapproach, you don't have to. You
can break it out any way youwant, even use just like a zip
lock bags for this matter. Don'tcomplicate it. If you keep the
(09:13):
candy for a week, right? Andwhatever it is, 10 pieces, 20
pieces in this bag, and youcommit to not eating it. One
week from now, I will put fivemore candies in that bag, if
that stays there for anotherweek. So week two, I will add
another five pieces of the candythat they like, if it stays
(09:37):
there in week three and weekfour and so forth. So the idea
is that. Them to all the suddenin a little bit of time to see,
oh, wow, I started with 10pieces of candy. A week later, I
now have my 10 plus mommy ordaddy or grandpa or grandpa are
going to match it up with thefive pieces of candy I now have
(10:02):
15. Maybe I can eat one and Istill have more than I initially
had, and so forth. So I hopethis is actually a really cool
example. And I know that yougotta eat that candy at some
point because it's gonna goback, but let's do it for a
month and see if this conceptwill sink about All right. This
(10:27):
is how money grows. This is howyou actually create real wealth,
even if we're just using thecandy concept here. And my last
one for all of it, I couldn'tlive without it, because it
still kind of circles back tothe basic principles of money
management. Is,
(10:48):
how can we instill in them thecharitable intentions, right? So
how can they be willing to shareand for younger kids, that's a
big, big lesson too, witheverything that they've got. So
explain to them, right? Andhopefully, if you prefer, maybe
(11:13):
follow the order that I'mdescribing these steps, and
because you can kind of buildon, hey, we are going to grow
the money or slash the candy byfive pieces next week. And so
since you have more, could youshare one piece of that or two
(11:37):
pieces of that, because you'regoing to still get more than you
initially started. So I knowthat, or maybe you introduced
the concept of kids that didn'thave the opportunity to have a
costume and go trick ortreating. Now that's a good
(12:01):
option for them to share, right?That you know, that particular
candy, or whatever it is, anyother you know, Halloween
related kind of thing. So thoseare my six ideas that I've got
for this exciting holiday. I'mstarting to enjoy it more and
(12:25):
more as Liam grows up, andreally trying to, like, find
creative ways, not just to, youknow, go the traditional route
of, like, blowing money oncostumes and and simply just
eating candy until you, like,pass out. Let me know what
(12:49):
you're doing with your kids forthis Halloween season and the
next couple of weeks. And how doyou keep them engaged and
creative, and still, you'reintroducing these lessons for
their finances. So I hope thiscould become a tradition for
(13:13):
your family, so that maybe trysome things this year and then
keep on going. But I'm reallyliking that the currency that we
presented here, and yeah,chocolate candy sounds like a
lot of fun. All right, moneybosses, that's all I've got for
(13:37):
you today until next time.Remember you are the bosses of
your own money.
Hey, Money Bosses. Anna is here, and
welcome back to the Money BossPodcast. I am excited for this
episode. I'm excited for all theepisodes, but this one should be
fun, because I want to reallyuse this theme of holidays
upcoming and start to kind of becreative how we teach money
(00:24):
lessons to our kids. So let'stalk a little bit about how
Halloween candy, and I know it'scoming down the road, could be
used to start introducing thesemoney concepts that we've been
talking about for quite sometime on the podcast already. So
with that in mind, I knowthere's a lot of promotion going
(00:49):
on at the moment. People arestarting to put up their
Halloween decorations. Iactually am going to dig that up
this evening and start to eventhough it's like just the
beginning of the month ofOctober, it's going to be here
before we know it. And somethingreally fun that we are doing
(01:12):
this year is that, well, firstof all, we're going to see my
family on the east coast, butalso going to spend the
Halloween with them, and it'sbeen years. We've lived in
California for 10 years now.It's been years since I was
actually in Maryland for theHalloween. I love all the fall,
(01:35):
and so looking forward to that.So I already know we're going to
have a lot of Halloween candy,because my family, my brother,
has kids, and I know we're goingto go trick or treating, so I
want you to kind of think aboutAll right, here's what's
(01:56):
happening with the kids, and Ithink this, if I further think
about this concept, how do weuse the candy as a teaching
lesson? The kids, probably ofall ages, can benefit from this.
I've been talking quite a bitwith you about the different
types of accounts you can set upand and the three jars concept
(02:20):
and introducing allowance. Sokeep those concepts in the back
of your head while we kind ofgoing through that. So here are
my kind of six ways, slashanalogies, how you can use
Halloween candy to learn moreabout what your kids are
understanding about money, andstart to introduce these
(02:44):
concepts to them and make themmore real. Because which kid out
there in the world doesn't likecandy? I don't think I can find
anyone. So here we go. Okay,I've got six ideas for you. So
number one is, how motivated areyour kids to work for this
(03:04):
candy? I know everybody lovesit, but How hard are they
willing to work so, you know,granted that you had already
purchased them a costume orcreated one from scratch
yourself. I wish I was thathandy. What are they willing to
do in order for you to take themout for trick or treating,
(03:27):
right? Or even buy them acostume? Of course, I'm lacking
ideas at the moment for myalmost three year old, but and
he's been telling me, it'sfunny, he's been telling me
lately that he does not want togo trick or treating. I'm not
sure what that's about. He onlyhas really two years of
(03:51):
experience doing that, probablyjust something he watched on
YouTube about Halloween beingscary. But I'm still going to
figure out a way for him toearn, right, this opportunity to
go out and Trick or treat, or anopportunity for us to spend
money and buy him the costume,so it's not something that it's
(04:16):
expected right every year forthe parents to do. So I wonder,
what is it that you're going todo to motivate them to actually
earn this awesome, awesomeexperience. So that's number
one. Number two, let's talkabout saving versus spending
concept, and if we're usingcandy as a currency. So our
(04:40):
currency here is candy, and kidsunderstand that concept very
well. Is there any candy left intheir blow buckets before you
get home for trick or treating.So look at that right, and then
talk to them about theseconcepts, right? When you have a
(05:00):
lot of candy, and that's what'sgoing to happen on that night.
What do you do with it? Do youjust eat all of it on that one
night? And maybe you eat morethan normal. But is there an
opportunity for you to introducethe idea of maybe putting some
(05:20):
of that candy aside and comeback to tomorrow, right? Or come
back to it, or save it for forthe rest of the week, so that
you can enjoy it a little bitevery day. I think the three
jars concept would be really,really handy in this, because
that includes the save, spendand give jar. You know, maybe if
(05:45):
they spread them out, evenbuying those jars would be
really cool. I will include thelink in the show notes. I have
found a really inexpensiveplastic jars on Amazon that have
a little lid and it has a selectfor you to drop points. I don't
think you can put candy, but youcan still probably use those
(06:10):
jars to accomplish the samething. So go back and listen to
that episode. I think it's areally handy for this particular
concept. But I can almost seehow like using the candy,
spreading it out into thesethree jars. And you know, maybe
some of the candy you can giveaway to mommy and daddy, right,
(06:34):
two days from now. Or you can,you know, you can eat whatever
it is that you designated tospending, which is your eating
bucket, and then the one you'resaving you're going to keep for
a little bit. So I hope thatmakes sense. Number three on my
(06:54):
list is budgeting versusbinging. So introduce the daily
limit on how much candy can theyeat per day, right? And compare
that to real money. So if youhave five pieces of candy you
are allowed to eat from thatbatch that you collected on the
Halloween night. How long isthat going to last you? And the
(07:19):
same thing, if you had $5 or $50or whatever that number is, how
long is that going to last you?Can you spend $5 every day?
Maybe you buy a cup of coffee ora lunch or something like that.
So use the candy as the currencyto start to introduce that
(07:39):
being, you know, having a planversus, just like eating it all
right? And again, I'm not, afternot giving kids the opportunity
to enjoy this holiday by anymeans, but trying to create this
parallel between smart moneydecisions and lessons for the
(07:59):
kids and using candy as a fun,fun currency. Okay, number four
is, how do we teach them thetax? How do we teach them that
money that we make candy that weget on our trick or treating
trip is going to have to have atax and so maybe lay out an
example where they have 10pieces, and then two out of
(08:24):
those pieces are going to gointo a tax bucket, right? So
that's they don't get to keep 10pieces of the candy, because
that's how it works in reallife. Again, that way, when the
real life comes up and they geta paycheck, a real paycheck,
they're not expected to keep100% of it, because that's how
(08:48):
it works in real life. Sointroduce the tax component as
well. Number five, introduce theinvesting component. So if we
did continue with the three jarapproach, you don't have to. You
can break it out any way youwant, even use just like a zip
lock bags for this matter. Don'tcomplicate it. If you keep the
(09:13):
candy for a week, right? Andwhatever it is, 10 pieces, 20
pieces in this bag, and youcommit to not eating it. One
week from now, I will put fivemore candies in that bag, if
that stays there for anotherweek. So week two, I will add
another five pieces of the candythat they like, if it stays
(09:37):
there in week three and weekfour and so forth. So the idea
is that. Them to all the suddenin a little bit of time to see,
oh, wow, I started with 10pieces of candy. A week later, I
now have my 10 plus mommy ordaddy or grandpa or grandpa are
going to match it up with thefive pieces of candy I now have
(10:02):
15. Maybe I can eat one and Istill have more than I initially
had, and so forth. So I hopethis is actually a really cool
example. And I know that yougotta eat that candy at some
point because it's gonna goback, but let's do it for a
month and see if this conceptwill sink about All right. This
(10:27):
is how money grows. This is howyou actually create real wealth,
even if we're just using thecandy concept here. And my last
one for all of it, I couldn'tlive without it, because it
still kind of circles back tothe basic principles of money
management. Is,
(10:48):
how can we instill in them thecharitable intentions, right? So
how can they be willing to shareand for younger kids, that's a
big, big lesson too, witheverything that they've got. So
explain to them, right? Andhopefully, if you prefer, maybe
(11:13):
follow the order that I'mdescribing these steps, and
because you can kind of buildon, hey, we are going to grow
the money or slash the candy byfive pieces next week. And so
since you have more, could youshare one piece of that or two
(11:37):
pieces of that, because you'regoing to still get more than you
initially started. So I knowthat, or maybe you introduced
the concept of kids that didn'thave the opportunity to have a
costume and go trick ortreating. Now that's a good
(12:01):
option for them to share, right?That you know, that particular
candy, or whatever it is, anyother you know, Halloween
related kind of thing. So thoseare my six ideas that I've got
for this exciting holiday. I'mstarting to enjoy it more and
(12:25):
more as Liam grows up, andreally trying to, like, find
creative ways, not just to, youknow, go the traditional route
of, like, blowing money oncostumes and and simply just
eating candy until you, like,pass out. Let me know what
(12:49):
you're doing with your kids forthis Halloween season and the
next couple of weeks. And how doyou keep them engaged and
creative, and still, you'reintroducing these lessons for
their finances. So I hope thiscould become a tradition for
(13:13):
your family, so that maybe trysome things this year and then
keep on going. But I'm reallyliking that the currency that we
presented here, and yeah,chocolate candy sounds like a
lot of fun. All right, moneybosses, that's all I've got for
(13:37):
you today until next time.Remember you are the bosses of
your own money.
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