Teach youngsters to save, not spend

Dear Amy: I am in a relationship with a man who has two daughters, ages 9 and 10. At the end of his marriage, he and his wife filed for bankruptcy, partly due to her shopping addiction.

Her spending doesn’t appear to have changed, and I’m worried about how it’s affecting her children, now and in the future.

She immediately buys them everything they want to the point where there’s really nothing to purchase for birthdays or Christmas, because they want for nothing. She buys them more clothes than any child could ever wear before they outgrow them.

Recently she started giving them an unearned allowance of $20 a week, however, she doesn’t actually “give” them the money. She instead takes them shopping so they can spend the money they should be saving.

These children have so many things that they have no value in what they receive. They get a toy, play with it for the day and then it gets tossed aside and then donated when their mother cleans out their room.

I am very concerned about the impact this will have on them in the future, but she is not someone with whom we can reason. I have tried to counteract by discussing with the girls the value of saving money, and we hope to set up savings accounts for them. These girls are with their mother two-thirds of the time, so I worry that our message won’t get through to them.

Do you have any advice on what we can do? — Not-a-Spender

Dear Not-a-Spender: Your most valuable contribution to these girls will be to lavish them not with things, but with experiences. When they are with their father, he (and you) should develop routines and traditions that reflect your values.

Go places together, cook together, play board games and read chapter books as a family. Spend time in nature. Volunteer to pet and walk the animals at your local shelter.

Set up piggy banks and saving accounts for both girls, encourage them to save and learn to spend wisely.