Credit: SWNS / Hannah Koumakis
An entrepreneur has told how she was given $140 a month pocket money from the age of just seven - but said it taught her how to budget for life.
Hannah Koumakis, 24, received this fund from her parents chore free until 14, where she was taught to make her own money by washing neighbours cars and walking their dogs.
But it came with a catch - she had to budget and record her finances in a book, buying almost everything she needed for herself.
For 11 years, she divided her 'income' into separate categories - long-term and short-term savings, spending and tithe donations for the local church.
She said her friends assumed the family were rich - but actually Hannah and her two sisters had to use the money to pay for their own essentials like clothes, meals out with her family and school trips.
Each month she would put $70 in long-term savings, $20 in short-term savings and $14 to tithe- leaver her $36 to spend.
An entrepreneur has told how she was given $140 a month pocket money from the age of just seven - but said it taught her how to budget for life.
Hannah Koumakis, 24, received this fund from her parents chore free until 14, where she was taught to make her own money by washing neighbours cars and walking their dogs.
But it came with a catch - she had to budget and record her finances in a book, buying almost everything she needed for herself.
For 11 years, she divided her 'income' into separate categories - long-term and short-term savings, spending and tithe donations for the local church.
She said her friends assumed the family were rich - but actually Hannah and her two sisters had to use the money to pay for their own essentials like clothes, meals out with her family and school trips.
Each month she would put $70 in long-term savings, $20 in short-term savings and $14 to tithe- leaver her $36 to spend.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 Hello, this is the story about why my parents decided at the age of eight to give me $200 pocket money every single month.
00:06 So at the age of eight my parents decided, you know what, we want to teach our kids how to be really good with money.
00:11 And so instead of just being like buying us stuff that we wanted, buying us a new Barbie doll, buying us clothes,
00:17 they were gonna teach us how we can do it.
00:19 So we got given $200 pocket money, but this is $150 back in the day.
00:23 So let's just use $150. But we didn't just get $150 per month to spend.
00:29 No, we had to be taught the power of saving.
00:32 So with $150 we had to make sure that we put aside 30% into our long-term savings.
00:38 Now long-term savings basically meant anything that was towards a house.
00:42 Long-term savings are literally a house account.
00:44 So at the age of eight I was saving for my first house and I got so excited watching it grow in my bank account.
00:49 We also, so that was 30%. We also, we are Christians and we believe in paying tithe.
00:54 So we also had to pay 10% of our income to tithe. That gives us 60% left.
00:58 With that 60% did we get to use it? No, we still had to save.
01:02 We had to save another 30% for our short-term savings.
01:05 Now short-term savings basically meant anything to do with buying a big ticket item.
01:10 So a car, essentially a car account or like a laptop account.
01:14 That brings us to a whopping 30% of our income that we were allowed to spend.
01:17 Bear in mind we had to buy everything. We had to buy our clothes.
01:21 So if we needed a new top, we want a new top, we had to buy it ourselves.
01:24 Fortunately, I was the third child so I had a lot of hand-me-downs.
01:27 But my sisters decided to make a bit of money from me and they'd sell me their clothes.
01:30 So I think my eldest sister found it the hardest because she was the one who actually had to buy clothes herself.
01:35 So whenever we want a new Barbie doll, we would never go up to our parents and nag them.
01:39 We would literally have to save ourselves.
01:41 So my parents went from being, "No, you can't buy this. No, no, no."
01:44 To, "Yes, you can buy this, but do you have enough money?"
01:47 We were not allowed to touch any of our other accounts.
01:49 This meant from the age of eight, I was literally looking forward to sales
01:53 and making sure that I could get more bang for my buck.
01:55 But it doesn't just stop there.
01:58 My dad instilled within us that we had to keep a finance book.
02:03 So if you've seen my previous videos, you'll know why I document every single item that I spend.
02:07 Because that's been drilled within me for the past 15 years.
02:10 I've documented everything that I've ever bought for the past 15 years.
02:13 This can kind of sound a bit OTT, but I think it's great.
02:16 Even like whenever we'd go and find money, if we found 10 cents on the ground,
02:19 we'd write it down in our little finance book.
02:21 We got paid this pocket money system up until we were about 13 years old.
02:24 From 13 years old, we had to go out and find and make money elsewhere.
02:28 So by the age of 14, I was making my own money through my first job.
02:33 But yeah, it was basically, it was the best system ever because it meant that now,
02:36 I really understand and I have a great appreciation for money
02:41 and for how hard people work to buy the things that they can buy.
02:44 Let me know your thoughts and if you think that that is a good system to run.
02:48 Because I think it was great.
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