A Chat with Alisa T. Weinstein, Author of 'Earn It, Learn It'

I'm an avid reader, especially of financial/biz related books. When I read Alisa T. Weinstein's, Earn, It, Learn It - I knew I had to have her share with the #MoneyChat family! 

It is the coolest book I've read that assists parents with teaching kids about careers in a way they actually want to learn - HANDS ON! Kids learn about money and careers; while also enjoying the quality time with parents as they do the various career explorations together. I love it and definitely recommend you share with the kids in your life!  ~ Dorethia

In Earn It, Learn It’s introduction is titled Battle of the Lip Balm. I know there’s a good story there.

[BIG LAUGH] It’s now Weinstein family legend. I was in Target with Mia, who was four at the time, and she wanted another Lip Smackers lip balm. She had too many of them as it was, but she had to have another. In my exasperation, I told her to “Get a job!” so she could pay for it herself. And this light bulb went off. I decided she was going to have a “real” job with a “real” task and earn her money the same way adults do. 

She chose to be a market researcher, like her dad. With his help, she surveyed friends and family about their favorite ice cream flavors, created a pie chart and presented her results to me. Then I paid her. It was so much fun—so educational without feeling that way—that we all wanted to continue with new careers!

  

So you started with market researcher, but the book has 50 careers. How did you jump from the one career to an entire program?

It was marine biologist that did it. Mia was a few careers in when she asked to be something I knew nothing about. And while there’s information online about what marine biologists do, I couldn’t find anything that described how they do it. I needed outside help. So I worked with 49 professionals—like a chef, an investigator, a toy designer and, yes, a marine biologist—who told me what it is they do for a living. 

I then translated their daily tasks into the more than 950 kid-friendly tasks in Earn It, Learn It. Families pick a career and a task, kids do the task, and then get paid for their efforts on Payday.

This sounds different than other financial literacy programs. Why do you think that’s so?

Because Earn My Keep starts at the beginning. Most financial literacy programs start with what I call the Part II: the spending, saving and giving. Regardless of how children get money into their hands (by chores, odd jobs or a string-free allowance), focus has been on what to do with money once it’s earned. 

Earn My Keep, however, starts with Part I: how adults earn money in the first place. By experiencing the beginning of the fiscal process, children are more likely to grasp how the real world works. Plus, kids are exposed to science, math, art and manners. They foster self-motivation and self-confidence. And one of my favorites: they learn to appreciate how hard Mom and Dad work to provide the things they want and need!

Some say four is too young an age to start learning about money…

Not even remotely. By age four, many children know what money is. They don’t know where it comes from. They don’t know where we keep it. They don’t even know to question where it comes from or where we keep it! But if your kid has ever had a “gimmies” moment, he’s ready to learn how money works. And the earlier we start teaching, the more natural the experience will be. That said, it’s never too late to learn. Earn My Keep works from age four all the way up to 12.

A lot of parents pay their children for doing chores. Where do they come into play?

I’ve long felt chores get a bad rap. But chore completion is a great way to prepare kids with basic life skills. It’s also an important tool in creating a team-like family unit—“we all live here, so we all pitch in.” But I do not believe that kids should be paid for them. Adults don’t earn money for making their own beds, so it’s not realistic. And it reinforces the message that work isn’t fun. So my children earn money for their Earn My Keep tasks, only. Knowing, however, that this is a very personal family decision, it was important to me that the program worked with or without paying for chores. So, it does!

Can you identify the best part about the Earn My Keep method?

[REALLY BIG LAUGH] When my very first video about Earn My Keep was edited, I noticed that I started almost every sentence with, “The best part of Earn My Keep is…” And every time I named something different! It’s easy and fun. It’s expert-approved. It’s an amazing way to pack a whole bunch of parenting priorities into a really hectic schedule. But at the end of the day, I think my favorite part is that it teaches kids that the work we do can be worth more than the numbers on a paycheck. It helps them learn to love work for the sake of work. And it doesn’t get much better than that!

READERS: What about you? What methods have you used to teach your children or classroom about careers, chores & money? 

Alisa T. Weinstein is the mother of two; author of Earn It, Learn It: Teach YourChild the Value of Money, Work, and Time Well Spent; and founder of Earn My Keep—the first and only program that allows kids to earn money by having “real” jobs. To purchase the book and other fun Earn My Keep merchandise, explore Alisa’s informative, family-friendly blog at earnmykeep.com. You can connect with Alisa on Facebook and Twitter