Poor people don’t believe that they are worthy of receiving; rich people do.

Working on our vision boards

For those of you who do not know what a vision board is, it is a simple yet powerful visualization tool that activates the universal law of attraction to begin manifesting your dreams into reality. A vision board is simply a visual representation or collage of the things that you want to have, be, or do in your life. It consists of a poster or foam board (books in our case) with cut-out pictures, drawings and/or writing on it of the things that you want in your life or the things that you want to become. The purpose of a vision board is to activate the law of attraction to begin to pull things from your external environment that will enable you to realize your dream. By selecting pictures and writing that charges your emotions with feelings of passion, you will begin to manifest those things into your life.

I made sure the kids understood what a vision board was and everyone went to work…  They had tons of fun cutting and pasting.  It is never too early to start.  We have it by our school books so we go through at it every morning before school.  The law of attraction states that we attract into our lives anything that we give attention to, regardless whether it be positive or negative so that is why we look at it everyday.  As the kids do not have a specific desk or wall, a book works really well for our situation.

Start your vision board today, it is super easy and you’d be surprised on what happens…

Bussiness Sign

Later on in the evening, I saw them take a picture of someone in the living room and also realized that there was money transaction.  I asked him about it and he told me that he was charging people $1 for their picture to be taken.  At first I thought, “is this ok?”  Then I realized that the people who were having their pictures taken were consenting adults who can make their own decisions and could say no to the kids.

Before they went to bed, Matthew told me he made $1 in his “business”.  I asked him how much they made in total.  They made $4, so each kid made $1 that went into their money jars.  As you can see in the poster, there is the word free that is scratched off so I asked Matthew who’s idea it was to charge money and he said that it was his.  My little entrepreneur.  Funny, he just asked me the definition of entrepreneur today too.

My last experience was not a very happy one as the cashier refused to ring up the totals separately so it made it confusing for the 3 children when they were paying from different purses and not getting the proper change.  After this experience, I have decided that they have to be more comfortable dealing with their money and able to access their money better.

The first thing I have to do is to get them all a proper wallet.  One that has a compartment for bills and another for coins.  It gets a little hairy when they pull their money out of their purse and you have to make sure that they are not dropping the coins or the bills…

The next thing that I have already started is using money to “play” store.  Matthew being 8, understands how much money to give and how much change he has to get back.  He has to think about it but the mental math is working.  Andrew at 6, knows his money, knows how much to give, unfortunately he hasn’t gotten the concept of how much change he has to get back.  That will be part of our Math curriculum.  Natalie who is 4 is still learning to recognize the coins. We need to “shop” a little more!   That will come in time.  The fun thing with siblings like Matthew, he is always wanting to help and teach his younger siblings.

To help with these issues, this is what I have done. I got myself a set of “fake” Canadian money and use it to buy and sell things.  Everyone sets up a little store and we sell things and price it so that they have to how much to give and how much money to get in return.  The lesson here is not to learn the value of things just to learn to use money.  We buy and sell from each others store and make sure we get the correct change back.  Matthew even had a bowling alley that you pay to bowl at, a fun little variation.

Learning the value of items is a little different, when we go shopping, we do price comparisons.  If something is $X, what is the value to him?  Is the same product cheaper somewhere else?  We figure what else can he purchase with the $X and help figure whether the product is worth that amount of money.  For example, Matthew bought a Papo dragon for $30, I didn’t say anything as it was his play money.  A week later, we returned to the store and found out that that item was 20% and he realized that he could have saved $6 if he had waited.  While contemplating the money that he could have saved, he figured out what he could have gotten for $30 instead of just one beautiful dragon that just sit on his shelf.  He then realized that he had made a mistake in purchasing that dragon and fortunately for him, he was able to return it.  Learning the value of items will come with time and exposure.  So going out and purchasing items with their play money is good practice for future larger purchases…

Today we started the New Year with mass and today we are off to Joel, my brother’s place for lunch.  After which we will come home and have our own family celebration at dinner.  When we were little, we always went to our grandma’s house in Malaysia and the first two days of the New Year was spent visiting family and friends.  There was lots of red packets(with money) and lots of good food.  Being in Canada, the Chinese New year experience is much less calm, not as many people to visit and not as much food!  The Chinese like to eat!

We work on preserving some of our Chinese culture with our children as we learn the language and teach them about the special days and traditions.

Gong Xi Fa Chai

Andrew, Natalie and Matthew

Matthew

Andrew

Natalie

The children do not have a lot of wants or needs so we did not start an allowance earlier.  It was tough to decide how much to give.  We talked to different people and got different ideas.  We knew how we were going to divide the money for savings and spending etc but how much money would be good?  Since we were giving Matthew an allowance, we decided to give one to Natalie and Andrew too.  So we gave them 50cents per year of the child’s age.  Natalie(4) got $2 a week, Andrew(6) $3 a week and Matthew (8) gets $4 a week.

We keep a paper record where the kids calculate the amounts and write them in themselves.  It also gives them the ability to understand what they are doing exactly.  Click here to download a spreadsheet..  It is based on the theory from T Harv Eker and his book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth

Here are the definitions of the acronyms and a brief description – As kids do not have to pay for any necessities, the division of our money is different from the kids.

Giving (5%)

We need to share our wealth with others and the kids need to understand that from an early age.  When we give, we will receive many times over whether it is monetary or otherwise.

Education (10%)

This is for them to spend on bettering themselves, for workbooks, going on a specific course of buying a learning tool of some sort.  It is self explanatory.

Play (20%)

This amount has to be spent every month.  They can spend it on whatever they want and we have no say.  This money is for them to blow, even if it is impulse spending.  They need to understand how it feels.  If they save and save and save without spending, they won’t learn to appreciate it.

LTSFS Long Term Savings For Spending (30%)

The LTSFS is where the kids have to save up for a bigger item.  In this way they do not end up purchasing an impulse item.  When people talk about picking something out and then waiting for 24hours before making the purchase to make sure it is something you really want, the saving up time will give the kids time to make that decision.  An example for adults is to save up for that vacation or that new pair of shoes.  Smaller scale for the kids.

FFA Financial Freedom (35%)

This is where the kids save their money to grow.  This is basically the golden goose, you do not kill the goose so you cannot spend the money in this account.  The money is used for investments or any other money making vehicle.

I did the passion test many months ago and one of my passions was” to surround myself with like minded people who support me in my daily endeavours and life choices”.  It is amazing what the people around can affect your ideas and your decision.  After growing up a little and realizing that I choose my life, I realized that I do not have to hang around negative people that drain me.  I do not have to prove my life choices to anyone.

Choosing to quit my day job, working from home and then home schooling the kids has had it challenges.  Anything we do different, which is usually most things, many people have tried to talk us out of it or have frown upon our decisions.  That is extra stress that I have not needed.  Now we have decided to surround ourselves with people who accept us for who we are and are happy to see us happy and not to change that.  We choose to be surrounded with positive people!

In December I followed my dreams and worked in a local hotel and was so excited about it.  Unfortunately it didn’t work out.  The people I worked with had such a different mindset and work ethic that I felt really drained while at work.  That lasted only a month, a good experience as I work towards my other dream of owning a hotel someday.  I am glad and much happier choosing who I surround myself with.  Remember we have a choice and …

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
Jim Rohn

..I found another blog post that might shed more light on what I have said, check out the Personal Excellence Blog.

POW Cemetry

Here is a shot with Natalie and Andrew.  It looks like a sea of gravestones.  All but about 500 have names and state they were from.  The Union army had to confiscate the logs from the Confederates and somehow 500 were not accounted for.

The prisoners accommodations in Camp Sumter were so poor. They lived in triangular tents with water coming from a stream and horrible sanitation.  They were in a wooden Fort structure with double walls. The inner wall was called the “deadline” and the outer wall was called the “stockade”.  It was 16 acres with 10 acres added  with  so many people being sent there.  The most number of people they ever had was 32,000 prisoners but the fort was built to only house 16,000.  People died due to the elements, illness and starvation.

Not sure I remember when but while the prisoners were there, a spring sprung up, overnight providing them with much needed water, they couldn’t depend on the stream that was getting polluted before it even came into the camp.  I couldn’t imagine how many more men would have died without that spring.

Looking over the hill, it was crazy to imagine size and the number of people that lived there!  After seeing the pictures and visiting there, we have nothing to complain about.

After the visit to Camp Sunter, we went into Andersonville and watched a reanactment of the civil war.  It was really cool to see, what it was like.  As in the war, there was alot of shooting and canons being fired.  Someone suggested earplugs and so glad we did.  The reanactment took about half an hour with the Confederates moving forward attacking the Union forces and winning this battle.

It was cool to watch and these actors came from all over.  While they were in Andersonville, they lived in tent like they would have during war time.  Spoke to some of the men and they travel around to different events and take part in the different reanactments.  The one in Gettysburg is supposed to be the biggest one with thousands of people participating in an open field.  Another location to visit!

This has been my best birthday ever.  I sometimes expect so much on my birthday and if things don’t happen that way I get upset.  Yesterday I made things happen, without too much effort either, just go with the flow.  I never really wanted a big party for my 40th so spending the day with Kyle and the kids was great.  Maybe my 50th birthday but then 50 sounds so old…  I guess when I was 30, 40 sounded old!!

I woke up early to do a little bit of work before the kids woke up.  I have been sleeping in so it felt good to get up and get some work done first thing in the morning.  We went to the leasing office as usual to get our morning cookie and then headed out to the library for Natalie’s story time.  After story time, we went for Thai food for lunch.  It was good but not as good as “Siam Thai” in Winnipeg.  It was nice thought that we had left overs and I didn’t have to cook dinner. Perfect.  After lunch we headed to the Asian grocery store for groceries and bought a guava, freshly picked the day before from Miami.  Love fresh food.  Here are the pictures of the fruit for those of you who havn’t seen it.  You eat everything except the seeds, it is supposed to cause constipation.  Andrew said that it tasted like a cross between an apple and a Jicama root.  Matthew said that it tasted like an pear.

guava

Inside of the fruit.

We were home for the afternoon and then my friend Paola whom I met at the kids soccer came over to join us for dinner.  Wednesdays are movie nights here at the apartment so we all headed out to the movie theater to watch “17 again”.  We had our fill of junk food and came home.  Another friend of mine that lives here in the apartments also brought me some Chinese dumpings that has to be eaten on your birthday.  Unfortunately we already eaten so we have lunch for today!!  one day late….

My 40th Birthday was a busy day and fun filled day shared with my family and all my friends, ones here and the many that sent me wishes.  I am grateful to all who remembered me and made my day special!  Thanks…