Most kids get their first look at shopping and spending money from the comfort of a grocery store shopping cart, but I’m fretting that those days may be numbered.
Cruising the aisles is becoming rarer as busy parents take greater advantage of food delivery services that promise convenience and zero temper tantrums from fussy, tired 3-year-olds.
Don’t get me wrong, technological innovation is mostly a good thing. Food delivery giants such as Walmart and Amazon and start-ups like UberEats and DoorDash are all working on how to devise better, faster services to deliver everything from tomato paste to T-bones to meals in a box to your home or to the back of your minivan at reasonable price points that will attract more than just affluent shoppers.
And yes, the technology will provide young shoppers with many money management learning opportunities.
Still, I have a hard time seeing how having your groceries home-delivered by a drone or other express service can beat the experiences for kids that abound at brick and mortar grocery stores about spending money, comparing prices, product packaging and reading labels.
Call me a grumpy geezer if you like, but the grocery business has always been in my blood. My grandparents owned a small neighborhood store in Omaha, and I’d sit there for hours as they conducted business and kept an eye on me. My grandfather was the butcher and grandma placed the orders with suppliers and ran the cash register.
As a teen, my first summer job was sacking groceries for minimum wage, plus tips. To this day, I love watching what people put in their carts.
Before at least a few grocery stores join the long list of businesses in retail heaven, expose your kids to their learning laboratory. Some suggestions:
To avoid a case of the checkout gimmies, give your kids ahead of time some coins that add up to 50 cents or a dollar and let them spend it on something that goes in the shopping cart.
Let your kids drop your items in the basket and count them as they go in. If the choice is between two kinds of cereal, let them make the decision. If appropriate with older kids, give them part of your shopping list and let them track down the items.
Let your children help you clip grocery coupons, and as a reward, share any savings realized.
It sure seems like there is more air in the chip bags. And haven’t the sizes of certain canned goods shrunk and no longer match portions needed for recipes? This might be an opportunity to explain packaging and pricing.
Have your kids choose two or three different kinds of soft drinks – the big-selling national brand and the store brand. When you get home, perform a taste test by pouring the drinks into unmarked glasses. Which one tastes the best? Is there a difference? What about the price difference?
When the cashier explains that you saved a few dollars on your bill, remind your kids that you just spent $100 in order to get that savings. Does it feel like you got a deal?
These are learning opportunities kids may never experience a decade from now.
Contact Steve Rosen: sbrosen1030@gmail.com.
