As our children grow older, they become an age where they begin to learn the concept of money. Don’t wait to teach your children until they are older, begin when they are first learning to count money in school. Starting young will help teach them tips that build skills for a lifetime. Here are a few ways to incorporate lessons about money into your children’s life.
- Giving Your Child an Allowance. Teaching how money is earned is an important. Speaking to your child about chores they can do around your home to earn an allowance. Every family is different on how much allowance is given and how much work needs to be done. When it comes to their allowance, make sure to talk to them about saving a part of their allowance. Children never want to save money so it may be necessary to enforce a rule of saving a percentage of amount of all money earned to teach important habits for life. When you begin a pattern of saving your money as your grow older, it sticks with you as an adult.
- Play Monopoly or The Game of Life. Playing monopoly or The Game of Life may seem silly but these games create a wonderful opportunity to teach lessons on life. Money is needed to survive in the real world and these games bring in this reality in a great way. You will not just be teaching about money but spending time with your child at the same time which every child will love. Ensure to talk about life lessons while playing these games to help them understand how money is earned and spent in life. Discuss the cost of items and share experiences from your life or others you know to bring them into perspective.
- Bring Your Child Shopping. Bring your child with you to the store for your weekly or bi-weekly grocery shopping. Work with them to manage your list and budget throughout your shopping. I love grocery stores that have calculators on their carts but these are rarely seen any more so bring a calculator or let your child use your calculator on your phone to add up the items as you go to ensure you keep in your budget. It is amazing to put in perspective trying to not spend too much on needed items. Children know what they want when you go to the store, but to be part of this shopping allows them to learn how much these items cost. Show your child the different brands and the cost difference between them. Explain to them how much work was needed to earn this budgeted shopping money to put in perspective hard work with your grocery money.
- Encourage Your Child To Earn Money. As your children older, encourage them to start earning their own money. We all know those neighborhood kid side-jobs that we saw as a child. Whether mowing, babysitting, cleaning houses, yard work, and more, there are tons of opportunities for kids to earn extra cash! Teaching your child to go out and find ways to earn money when they want a more expensive item is a great way to teach them to strive for what they want and reach goals with money saving.
- Open A Saving Accounts. As adults, we know money in our pocket will burn through our pocket. Open your child a savings account to teach them to save and put money away where they cannot touch it to have for when they need. Saving money should be part of everything they do, so enforce a rule of saving a part of all money earned and received as a gift to help them reach savings goals. Find a number they want to save to and help them through going to the bank and putting their earned money in the bank. It is exciting for children to feel older through having an account and putting it away at the bank.
Always remember to teach about life whenever you can. Life is tough and the lessons we can teach as parents is important.
