Teaching Kids Money Management
Now that my kids are older and they receive money as gifts, it is not as easy as just putting it into their banks. Now they would like to spend it. I can understand that, so sometimes we let them take 40% of their money and use it to buy whatever they want. Sometimes it is a fruit and cheese platter from Starbucks and sometimes it is a small toy. We are figuring out how to let them manage money as they get older. Here are some tips we like that you may want to use with your kids.
Gift Cards- Kids can learn to buy exactly what they want when they get a gift card. They can save them up to make a bigger purchase and my kids feel like a big deal with their “credit cards”.
Fun Money- When kids are older then give them fun money. This is a budget with say $20, to do what they want to with their friends or with you on a weekend. The $20 has to pay for their activity, food, arcade whatever. Then kids will learn how much a movie and popcorn really costs.
Earn it- Let them ear their money buy giving them an allowance. Give them chores to do every day or buy the weeks end and pay them a fair wage. Either let them do whatever they want with that money (but they have to save all of their birthday and holiday money) or make them save some and save some.
Get a new piggy bank- This one has four chambers, one for each of the four money management choices a child should be taught. They are SAVE, SPEND, DONATE, and INVEST.
teaching kids money manangement, kids and money, chores, school age children, parenting, parenting children, kids, money management
March 4th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
We are huge fans of Dave Ramsey, so we plan on using his Financial Peace Jr. set with our little one. We have heard good things about other parents who have used it.
Kids don’t get an allowance, but money based on a commission for doing small chores, etc. Basically teaching kids that you have to work if you want money. And you don’t get it just because you breathe air.
A link to the kit:
http://www.daveramsey.com/shop/Financial_Peace_Jr__P112C87.cfm
March 15th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
My husband and I created a kids’ savings and money management software program because our youngest son was having a difficult time understanding the value of saving his money. It’s called KidsSave. We included a section where kids can experiment with how much their savings can grow if they save some of their money and are earning interest. It’s what sold our son on saving! We also believe learning to save for an item is also important so we have a goal setting section which teaches kids how to create and then maintain a personal financial goal. Parents really like this section because it teaches kids to live within their means as well as delayed gratification. For our young users we created a money counter so they can learn the values of coins and bills and how to add/subtract money. And finally kids are able to make deposits/withdrawals, have their allowance automated and receive what we call Rewards, interest and matching funds. If you’re interested, here’s the link: http://www.kidnexions.com