Wealth & Money Quote by Barbara Coloroso

Allowance gets sold as a tiny paycheck, but Barbara Coloroso is pitching it as moral training with receipts. The line stacks four verbs - have, earn, win, inherit - to flatten the usual hierarchy of "deserved" money versus "lucky" money. To a kid, cash is cash; to adults, it comes with stories. Coloroso’s move is to say the story doesn’t matter nearly as much as the habits that follow. That’s the intent: shift the conversation from "how much" to "what now."

The subtext is quietly corrective. In a culture that treats financial success as proof of virtue, she insists that money is ethically neutral until you practice stewardship. Spending, saving, giving: the three-part structure is almost catechism, and it’s deliberate. Spending acknowledges desire and agency (kids will want things). Saving introduces restraint and future-thinking without scolding. Giving is the twist that makes this more than personal finance; it smuggles in community obligations as a skill, not a sporadic act of charity.

The context is late-20th/early-21st century parenting literature, where "character education" got rebranded as practical life skills. Coloroso frames allowance not as entitlement but as a controlled environment for mistakes. She’s also arguing against the trap of outsourcing values to lectures. Money is tangible, trackable, and emotionally loaded; that’s why it’s such an effective teaching tool. The point isn’t to raise mini-accountants. It’s to raise people who can hold resources without being held by them.