The Value of a Dollar

 These are serious times in our economy. We all know that...but do our kids realize how much has changed over the past year? My son is 9 and is very curious about all this economic crisis talk. So, tonight I decided to remind him what the value of a dollar really is. I took him to the grocery store, gave him $20 and asked him to pick out items he knew we needed for the week...milk, cereal, etc. and I would stop him once he has reached his limit. To Kevin, $20 is a lot of money (fortunatly for me) so he was very surprised to find with his $20 he could only buy one gallon of milk, one box of cereral, one package of juices, a box of granola bars, a package of paper towels and a bag of apples. He didn't even get halfway through the list of items he wanted. It's so important to teach our children that we can't always buy what we want, when we want and to be thankful that we can still afford the items we have to have and even more thankful we can afford the items we want. 70,000+ jobs were lost yesterday and more layoffs are expected this week. We have to communicate this with our children without worrying them, but showing them it's time to take the dollar seriously.