STUFF does not = LOVE

The My Budget Money Talks latest blog post - "Are We Spending Too Much On Our Kids?" - just dropped into my inbox and the timing could not be more perfect.

I've been in a few shopping plazas over the last two weeks, smack bang during the toy sales. 

It was overwhelming, headache inducing, and watching the people around me I could have sworn I'd fallen into a parallel universe where things like the GFC haven't happened. 

My "excitement" over the annual toy sales was best summed up here:

That's right. I did.

To be fair - I buy my kids toys for their birthday, or Christmas. Sometimes I give them little "just because" presents. 

But I don't rush out and spend a months grocery money on a trolley full over overpriced plastic, beeping, electronic, brain melting petroleum products in the hope my kids will think I'm awesome.

Frog does have a fair few toys - but when you look closely you will see that they are mostly inherited from her big sister, or even began life as MY toys. I had to wrack my brains to decide what Father Christmas was going to bring because we already had plenty. 

According to reports, kids are increasingly costing their parents crazy amounts of money. 

Anywhere between the base figure of approx $400K and anywhere up to $1M to get from baby to age 18. 

Holy. Cow.

Food, clothes, dance lessons, football boots, driving a squillion miles a year to ferry them around everywhere. It adds up before you can blink. And mostly, I can understand the figures.

BUT...

How much of that is inflated by the fact that kids "must" have absolutely everything?

Every child I saw over the last couple of weeks was whinging, whining, screaming, hitting, kicking or having a full scale meltdown because "I WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANT IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT TOOOOOOOOOOOO MEEEEEEEEE!!"

And every time, without fail, the offending item was added to the overflowing trolley.

Kids are growing up being indulged constantly, and are going on into adulthood with a massive, and misplaced, sense of entitlement that will do nothing but cause them grief, whether financially or emotionally later in life. 

Parents are hurling themselves into unmanageable and crippling debt year after year to provide a mountain of presents bigger than the Christmas tree. What is wrong with one present?

Can someone tell me why a three year old needs their own iPad? I saw a woman getting shouted at by her tiny dictator because she wanted a pink cover, not a purple one, for her brand spanking new iPad3. I shit you not.

And for the cost of that iPad, four children could have access to a basic education they otherwise wouldn't. I bet those children aren't shrieking about it and stomping their Mini Choo clad feet.

For me, the answer lies in a basic formula.

STUFF does not = LOVE.

You are not doing your child any favours by teaching them that money never ends.

Do you really want to be unable to retire because you are still paying your little spoiled darling's credit card bill every month?

Talk to your kids about money. 

Teach them to save, teach them to budget.

Teach them not to expect everything and give nothing. 

Give them the gift of a financially stable future for you and for them.

Love them enough to say no.