Saving

As some of you may know, Aiden has been working at saving money to purchase an ipad since last September. He has wanted an ipad since my dad bought one and brought it with him on visit. There are amazing educational applications for it and it's so very in line with Aiden's interests. But, they are expensive and we told him that we couldn't just buy one for him. He was sad, but not long after that, he saw an article about this 8 year old boy who saved money to buy an ipad. He was insistent that he had to do the same. We weren't sure how long a kid Aiden's age would stick with saving money. Would he be able to be patient while he saved? It was worth a try.

Between allowance, doing additional tasks around the house, and some gift money from his birthday and Christmas, he has now saved $100 for his ipad. While he has a way to go yet, we are so impressed that he is willing to wait it out and save. Every time he gets money, he immediately says, "Put it in the ipad fund!". Since John and I know that saving $500-$600 would take a few years, we have decided (without telling Aiden) that once he reaches a certain point - probably around half way - we will match what he has saved, potentially as a gift if it happens to fall around his birthday or Christmas. While it would be fun to see his face as he opens a present to find an ipad, there's also a part of us that thinks he would love to be able to walk into the Apple store with his money that he saved, and have the pride of purchasing the ipad himself.  We'll see how it works out once it gets closer.

I had a hard time believing that he would stick with saving this long, but he's done it. And now that he sees that he's into triple digits, he is even more eager to keep saving. We are very proud of him and it's been fun to watch him learn how to earn money and then put it away for something that he wants.