Changing Our Family Tree

A couple of months ago the stage was set for, what I believe, has been one of our most teachable moments in Abby's young life. One day during nap time, I was doing a little window shopping on Craigslist and I found a loft bed with a slide that I thought Abby might love. Before nap time was over, I had found 4 beds for her to look at.

Abby's Dream Bed!

When she woke up we looked through all of the beds and she found one that she really liked. I called about it immediately, but sadly it had just sold. As I looked the bed up online, I found that they really weren't as expensive as I thought they would be. We decided to take a spur of the moment trip to Nebraska Furniture Mart to look at beds and just get out of the house for a while. It turns out they had the bed in stock that we saw online, but right next too it was a different bed that become the bed of her dreams over the next two months. One big obstacle stood in the way though. It was the most expensive bed we saw in the kids section!






Many years back Kelly and I took a "Financial Peace University" class at our church. If you are not familiar with this class, it is founded on biblical principals of handling money and NOT using debt as a tool to manage your finances. More information can be found about the course and the teachings of its founder, Dave Ramsey here. With this class we gave up credit cards and debt in general. We have not carried a credit card or had a car payment in about 6 years! (We also haven't missed either of them by the way!) So, putting Abby's dream bed on our credit card and taking it home that day wasn't an option. We were also pretty reluctant to pay that kind of money for a kids bed! It truly does hurt more when you are paying cash.

When we got home we told Abby we would be willing to pay for half of the cost of the bed, but we needed to figure out where that other half could come from. Immediately she said, "I'll use the money in my piggy bank!" Wow, what a great idea!!! It turns out that she didn't have enough in her piggy bank, but she did have enough in her savings account. She has been good about saving the money that she gets for Christmas, birthdays, and random gifts. She REALLY wanted this bed and has not stopped talking about it for 2 months. Since we are moving to Manhattan, she will finally be back in her own room and she will have plenty of space for this bed.

Abby Waiting

On Friday, we made a trip to the bank to withdraw the money that was needed to pay for the bed. When we got to Nebraska Furniture Mart, they no longer carry the bed in stock! Luckily, they still have a couple in their inventory and our sales person was even able to find it cheaper somewhere else online! The sales person researching the bed and getting everything in order took quite a while. Abby managed to wait "patiently" on the sales counter while entertaining herself with a game on my phone. After some extensive searching, the salesman finally found a picture of the bed and showed it to Abby. Immediately she said "yep. That's the one I want!" She had no doubt what she was looking for and her memory of the bed was much better than mine.

Abby Counting Her Money

While the salesman was finalizing the order we got out the money to practice. I'm sure the sight of a four year old with a stack of $100 bills was pretty shocking to the people walking by. It was hilarious to us! She was excited to learn that they had the bed even though it was going to take a while to be delivered. We were able to get free delivery because they were matching the price of the bed to another company that included free shipping. We are paying a small fee to have them put it all together at our new house in Manhattan. Our hope is that it will be delivered in time for the first nights sleep in our new house!


When we got downstairs to the cashier I sat Abby up on the counter and gave her the wad of money to count out to the cashier. After ringing her up Abby laid out her $100 bills one at a time for the lady. The smile on the ladies face was priceless as well. I bet she never had a four year old do that before! To see a video of this transaction click here.

In the end, could we have just bought the bed for her and bypassed all the extra stuff? Yes. Would it have meant as much to Abby or us? Not at all! She has learned the value of money. She has learned that she has to have money if she wants to buy something. She has also learned that it "hurts" to drop a large sum of money at once! It is our hope that we can model good financial reasoning to both of our kids. Often times that means that we cannot buy things at the spur of the moment and we very rarely make unplanned purchases. This method is counter to many things in our society and often gets us strange comments and looks from strangers or even family members. In the end, we own everything we have and enjoy the lack of bills that come to the house every month. It is our hope that we are, in the words of Dave Ramsey, "Changing Our Family Tree" in educating our kids this way. I know that the life lesson learned on Friday will likely stick with Abby the rest of her life and it has given us the encouragement to know that we are making a difference in the financial future of our kids as well.