Tuesday Tip - Kid Petty Cash

By now you have probably paid for school photos and/or a school t-shirt. You may have even paid the admission fee for a field trip and you could only send cash. How did you pay for it? Did you have to run to the store and purchase a pack of gum to request cash back? C'mon you know you have! This year, my daughter's class shirt was $6.75 and photos $17.00. Is it me or is the cost always an odd number with odd change like $.75?

Last year, I decided to put dollars and cents in what I call the Kid Petty Cash. We actually funded the petty cash with spare change in our house. Imagine our surprise to learn the change jar had over $90.00 (and a few Chuck E. Cheese tokens). We took the change to a self-service coin counting machine and I just placed dollars and change in a ziplock bag (no fancy cash box needed). Sure you could write a check for some things, but it personally drives me nuts when they take forever to cash it.

My Kid Petty Cash Starter
(Adjust your starter amount as needed)

$50.00 - ten dollar bills
$25.00 - five dollar bills
$20.00 - one dollar bills
$5.00 in quarters