The Costco Connection

WHILE DAN MEADER was shopping at Costco, his two sons, John, now 14, and Will, now 13, asked him if they could use their allowance to buy a video game. Meader couldn’t remember how much money he owed them, and the ensuing debate sparked the idea for Allowance Manager (allowance manager.com), an online tool and mobile app that helps parents and kids track allowance.

Money

matters

Meader, who has held engineering roles
at Silicon Valley tech companies, including
Adobe and Apple, created the app with input
on features from John and Will. The creative
dad had originally intended the tool to
simply track the boys’ allowances,
but after seeing how well it worked
for his family, he released it to the
public in 2011.

Allowance Manager’s basic money-tracking features are free; however, parents can pay $98 per year to give their kids access to an AllowanceCard, a Visa debit card tied to their Allowance Manager account “that allows kids to basically stand in a [store] and say, ‘Do I really want to spend my money?’ ” Meader explains.

In addition to giving kids the chance to make real-world purchasing decisions, Meader says, Allowance Manager also helps keep parents accountable. “Virtually all of us blow it So far, more than 200,000 users on mobile and Web platforms have signed up, and Meader says the kids range in age from 5 (an Allowance Manager Junior version does not include the debit card) to college age. “Understanding money is a skill,” he says, “and, like any skill, it’s best learned early and practiced frequently.”—Susan Johnston

MEMBERconnection

In our digital editions

Click here to watch a short demo of Allowance Manager.

(See page 11 for details.)

Safety-net parents

We want to hear from you!

If you have a note, photo or story to share about Costco or Costco members, email it to connection@costco.com with “The Member Connection” in the subject line or send it to The Member Connection, The Costco Connection, P.O. Box 34088, Seattle, WA 98124-1088. Submissions cannot be acknowledged or returned.

Dan Meader enjoying family time at the beach with his wife, Kim; their sons, Will (left) and John (right); and Lulu, their dog.

COSTCO MEMBER LEON Scott Baxter of Santa Barbara, California, was a blogger and published author of two books about relationships when his wife, Mary, and other parents encouraged him to write a book about parenting. So, in November

2014, the father of two girls, Riley, 16, and Grace,

11, self-published Secrets of Safety-Net Parenting: Raising Happy and Successful Children: The Common Denominator ( safetynetters.com; not available at Costco). The 46-year-old says he interviewed some really fantastic children and their like-minded parents who wanted to raise happy, successful children.

“As parents we want our children to be
successful, but the ultimate reason we want them
to be successful is because we want them to
be happy,” Baxter, a full-time elementary school
teacher for 18 years, tells The Connection. “We
believe that success will make them happy.”
After comparing the different parenting styles,
Baxter came up with eight common points and
coined the term “safety-net parenting,” in which
parents give children the opportunity to fail, but
catch them before they crash.

Among the tips that can be found in his book:

• Help your children find their passions and let them build them into strengths. Although it can be difficult to find out what they love, if parents do a lot of listening and paying attention they can tune in and find out what’s exciting to their children and help foster that interest.

• Create rules and procedures, and stick with them. Consequences and follow-through give children limitations and allow them to know their boundaries, which makes them feel safe and secure.

• No matter what parents say, what parents do is a thousand times more powerful. Children will model their parents’ behavior, so don’t allow excuses for your children or yourself.

Baxter also says that learning from mistakes
is a part of parenting: “By no means am I a fantas-
tic parent; I make mistakes, like many of us do.”
—Christina Guerrero