Money
Thanks for joining us!
This episode was written by Kara and voiced by Kara and T.
Episode art was drawn by Jean.
It was originally released in November 2024.
— We love these books about money —
Click on each photo for a link to the book
— Set up your own shop —
Real-Working Cash Register toy from Lakeshore
This toy cash register has satisfyingly working buttons and a drawer that opens to store realistic dollar bills and coins.
Wooden Cutting Fruit Set from Melissa & Doug
Set up a shop with these fruits & veggies that kids can cut in half on their own.
Bird’s Nest Cafe from Tender Leaf
General Store from Tender Leaf
Tender Leaf makes such beautiful wooden food and food-related items! Get a set of mini sweets, a cafe, or go big with the market.
What would you put on your own currency?
Japanese yen
American dollars
Euros
— Money Episode Summary —
What exactly is money? —
Money is a thing – it’s something we can hold in our hands. Money is paper dollar bills and round metal coins. And we also talk a lot about how we use it. We say things like “come to the register, we have to pay for that.” Or “we will buy that shirt with money.” Or “Mama works at her job to make money.”
In our country, the United States of America, our money comes in two forms: dollar bills and metal coins. Dollar bills are small pieces of paper – they’re so small and light that you could hold a bunch in your hand.
Dollar bills are small pieces of paper – they’re so small and light that you could hold a bunch in your hand. They are a light whiteish color with green and gray drawings on them of things like buildings, numbers and people’s faces! The dollar bills we have are: $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100.
In addition to dollar bills, we have cent coins —
In the US, the coins we see the most are the penny, nickel, dime, and quarter. They are all small and shaped like a circle, but these four types of coins are NOT the same size. And they’re NOT all the same color! And they do NOT all have the same people’s faces, or numbers on them!
Pennies are worth the least amount of money. They are worth 1 cent. Pennies have a metal called copper on them, which gives them an orange-y brown color. They have a man’s face on one side, and on the other side the words “One Cent” are written out.
The coin worth the next amount is the nickel. It is worth 5 cents. Five 1 cent pennies are worth the same amount as one nickel. A nickel has a shiny silvery color.
A dime is the smallest size of the coins! It’s worth 10 cents, which is 10x how much a 1 cent penny is worth, but the dime coin is a smaller circle than a penny! And it’s the same kind of shiny silver color as a nickel.
So a penny is worth 1 cent, and nickel is worth 5 cents, and a dime is worth 10 cents, and next one, the quarter, must be worth… 15 cents? No?? A quarter is worth 25 cents. Which is also the same amount as a quarter of a dollar.
Different countries have different currencies —
A country’s money, its paper and coins and how much they’re worth, is called its currency.
In the United States, We have dollars and cents. In India, they have rupees. In Mexico, they have pesos. In Japan, they have yen. Usually each country has its own currency, but in the continent of Europe, a bunch of countries decided to share their currency, they use one called the Euro.
These currencies also all look different! They’re different sizes and colors. In the United States, our dollar bills and cent coins all show pictures of past leaders of our country, many of them male presidents. Other countries have pictures of important people from their history.
What would you put on your own currency?
What do we do with money? —
We pay for things! Which matters, because almost everything costs some amount of money: Toys, food, clothes, backpacks, books from the bookstore. Which means, we have to give money to the person or company selling that thing.
When we give people right right amount of money, we can take the thing home.
We know how much money to give them because things have a price. That means how much it costs. We can tell this with a sticker that shows the number.
Things cost different amounts of money! A big Lego set with lots of pieces costs a lot more than just one Lego figure.
How do we get money? —
Kids don’t usually have to worry about money too much. It can be fun to have to spend on the things you want. Some older kids are given an allowance, a small amount of money, each week. Maybe you gotten some from the tooth fairy or found it in an Easter egg. At Chinese new year, it’s a tradition to give kids some money in a special red envelope.
For grownups, who pay for more things and bigger things, we have to work, to earn money.
Grownups work at their jobs. Some jobs can be things like an artist, a sculptor, a teacher. A doctor can work to help sick people at a hospital. A waiter works by bringing people food at a restaurant. When we do that work, we receive money for doing it. And then we use the money to buy things that we want and need!
Thanks to bank accounts and credit cards, sometimes we can’t exactly see all of the money we have —
When grownups work at a job, over time they will make more money than just a $10 bill or even a $100 bill. So they will save that money, which means, they don’t spend it all, they keep it. And money is often kept in a bank.
A bank is a holding place for money. The money is ours, but it’s kept somewhere else, somewhere safe.
Similarly, grownups sometimes pay for things in a way where you can’t see the dollars we’re paying with. We can pay with a credit card – a small piece of plastic – or by tapping our phone against a small machine. This is still paying for something, even though we’re not handing over dollar bills.
Credit cards and apps on our phones are connected to the banks. So even though we go, boop! Paid! Boop! Paid! It’s not like money is endless! We have to have enough money to pay for how much something costs.
And, if you don’t have enough money to buy something at a time, you can save it until you do. Like T is saving her money to buy a Lego Sleeping Beauty castle!