A little more than a year ago, I instituted a new allowance strategy in our household.

We had a problem with the previous allowance system in that it was paid out at random times and sent directly to the kids’ bank accounts. The kids had no real idea how much money they had and thus my youngest was constantly spending money and my oldest was never spending money and I was questioning the entire purpose of allowance.

We certainly were not teaching them how to handle money.

So I started the Give/Save/Spend system, which I read about in an irritating book. The system annoys me, for reasons I can’t quite articulate, but it works.

Our Give/Save/Spend system is all cash, which works great for the kids to see and feel how much money they actually have. I bought cute little money containers on Etsy, and on the first of each month each kid receives $60 split evenly between the three categories.

My youngest can no longer buy whatever he wants at any time. He had a $6 online subscription going for a while, but cancelled it after two months when he saw how much less spending money he had. If he wants something expensive, he has to wait to save the money. Usually this doesn’t happen and his monthly spend money goes straight to the CEO of Roblox who is making huge amounts of money off of gen alpha. But I think it’s instructive for him to go to stores, see a stuffed animal he wants, and have to put it back because he cannot afford it.

My oldest–an actual squirrel–is being forced to spend. I told him when we started this system that the spend money had to be spent; there was no option to move spend money into the save category. This may seem perverse, but I think it is necessary for a child who is wound too tightly and sees the spending of money as a massive failure of self-control. I told him if he didn’t spend all his spend money by the end of August I would be taking it and using it to buy expensive chocolate for myself, so he’s been slowly working on purchasing things that make him happy, mostly manga.

My plan for the save jars had been to watch the cash grow for a year and then transfer it to their savings accounts, but we ended up deciding to teach them about investing instead. Well, my husband is teaching them about investing. He took the cash they had saved and helped them pick out funds and now they each have money in the markets, which they check on from time to time. We talk about how much more money they will make if they can keep their money invested as long as possible. I hope this is instructive.

And that brings us to the give jars. My oldest gave some money to a class trip fund earlier in the year, but otherwise the give jars have just been ignored. I guess I’m not much for philanthropy, but I decided we needed to address the overflowing give jars before the end of summer.

We sat down yesterday to start researching charities, and it didn’t take long for the kids to find out that if you donate enough money to the World Wildlife Fund they will send you a stuffed animal. So we are now expecting three new plushies to arrive before the end of this month. Money was also given to Heifer International, Scratch Foundation, and the Animal Humane Society. It was a good exercise in thinking about giving priorities and how to make the world a better place.

Although I still find the Give/Save/Spend system annoying, it has worked well for us and we will keep using it. The cash aspect is probably the most difficult part, but also–I think–super important so kids can see and feel how much money they have. If you wanted to start the system in your household, I would recommend setting yourself up for success by ordering the containers from Etsy and going to the bank and taking out as many twenties as possible all at once.