"Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I will understand."
– Confucius

According to New London author and parent Lynne Finch, it never is too early to start teaching children how to manage money.

Finch began teaching her two daughters, Sarah, then 5, and Abby, 3, about the value of a dollar the day they received their first allowance in 1977.

"I remember my dad giving me an allowance and I'd go spend it," Finch said. "I didn't want my kids to do that. I didn't want them begging me for money. I didn't want them asking me for money. I wanted them to have control of money."

Because the family used mostly check and credit cards to control their spending, Finch didn't have a lot of cash readily available to dole out as allowance. That is when she came up with the idea for the no-cash allowance.

"I started a little written book, IOU 25 cents or whatever it was. It turned into an account book and that's what we did with the kids as they grew up. It is kind of like your check register but encompassed all the money they got. So they always had a big picture of how much money they had."

When the girls were old enough, they began writing in deposits and withdrawals themselves. When they purchased an item they could see they had less buying power, and when they added money they saw their buying power go up. They always knew how much money they had without physically touching cash.

Finch gave her children a subsistence allowance each week, which was a constant amount that went up every year. Her daughters also could work at home for certain items using a weekly card drawing system. While cleaning their room was a given each week, some chores paid money, and others didn't Money was earned by the luck of the draw.

Not only did Finch's no-cash allowance influence her children's spending habits, it influenced their behavior.

"You know how many times you have to tell them to pick things up? I got tired of that so I created a little helping hands sign and would charge little fees if they didn't want to do things themselves like picking up shoes or putting their books away. If I did it for them, I deducted it from their account. I didn't have to nag at them or follow after them."

When Finch's daughters went off to college, they still used the no-cash system. Finch and husband Jerry paid half their tuitions, which were deposited into accounts.

"And that's all they got from us," she said. "They never called home asking for more money because they knew we wouldn't give them money unless there was an emergency. They knew what our role was and what their role was."