Throughout my life, my mom has worked at credit unions. For this reason, I had good money sense as a kid. I knew the importance of earning my money, saving for the things I wanted and how credit cards and loans worked early on. Those nuggets of knowledge I gleaned from my mom way back when are still helpful to me in adulthood.
So I couldn’t help but appreciate (and laugh) when I read about the “savings and loan” letter a St. Louis dad gave to his 6-year-old son who asked for $20. A photo of the official-looking letter from “DAD Savings and Loan: Because, Apparently I Look Like I’m Made of Money” popped up on Imgur recently – and it’s brilliant. In the letter, dad, “CEO of DAD S&L,” tells his son that the $20 advance on his allowance he requested has been denied.
Here’s what the letter says in full:
Dear (son),
We regret to inform you at this time that we are unable to provide a loan in the amount requested of $20.00. After reviewing your account, we have find (sic) you have insufficient funds, and a history of not doing your chores.
Furthermore, over $80.00 has been spent on discretionary entertainment expenses since Christmas. This is an unsustainable amount of expenditure, and we cannot further compound the problem by financially assisting with occurring (sic) further debt at this point.
If you would like to refute this decision, you can contact our complaint department at 1-314-(mom’s number). Our dispute manager at this number may be able to persuade us to reverse our decision.
Thank you for choosing DAD Savings and Loan, we appreciate the chance to serve your financial needs.
Sincerely,
Dad
CEO, DAD S&L
St. Louis, MO 63126
How clever is that? I like that the boy has to refute to mom if he wants to challenge the decision. I wonder if it worked…
Commenter xdjsteve on the Imgur photo says, “As a dad, thank you for the template.” Another commenter LetsEatGrandpaCommasSaveLives chimed in, “Best realistic life lesson ever.”
Others argued differently.
“Guess it takes a journalist to say that letter is hilarious. I fail to see the humor,” Larry C. says on the KSL.com article.
RocDog writes, “How ridiculous, is this even for real? Does the kid even know how to read let alone count money? I would think this article was great if it was geared to a hard-headed teenager, but a 6-year-old? Come on … who is the one that really needs to criticized here? The parents for spoiling their child in such a way for allowing such behavior.”
To me, this dad is definitely instilling a sense of financial responsibility in his child early, and that’s fine. At 6, kids should start learning to value of money and how spending and saving works – even in simple ways. The lessons dad is teaching with his pretend letter will only continue to benefit his son – and maybe it will one day keep him from joining the ranks of adults burdened by high debt. Looking at how much debt we American’s rack up on average in our households because of credit cards and loans, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with teaching kids from young that money doesn’t come easy – and mom and dad can’t swoop in to save you with cash whenever it’s needed.
Did you feel like this savings and loan note was creative, or way over-the-top for a 6-year-old? Comment and share your opinion!
