Welcome to Share This Thursday! Today’s theme flows from yesterday’s discussion.
Our topic today is teaching kids about money. Have you ever written a post about how you are (or aren’t) teaching your kids to handle money? Do you give them an allowance? Make them do chores? Have them save in different accounts?
Share your post in the comments!
Read yesterday’s post here; and here’s another post I wrote on the topic, back in December, called Talking About Finances With Your Children.
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{ 9 comments }
My charity has a free guide available for download at the website I listed in the comment section (did not wish to post address here without permission) that teaches high school children about personal finance. If you think it would be benefital for your reader, please feel free to share the address with them. Thank you.
— Thom
My 4 year old daughter gets $5/month. She has a responsibility chart which has chores on it and also just things like how she treats people. Her chores aren’t tied to her allowance though. She does those things because she’s part of the family and has to help.
In addition to giving her an allowance, I want to teach her how to spend and save wisely. I let her choose what she wants to buy with the money she has saved, but I like to encourage her not to spend it all, so if she has $10 and chooses to spend $6 and save $4, then I match her savings and add $4 more to it.
Here’s a link to a post that shows the money jar she uses.
http://www.remodelingthislife.com/2009/02/25/trying-to-teach-my-daughter-to-save-money/
Growing up I was given allowance and thought it taught me responsibility with money and to save towards something I wanted.
I, too, was given a small allowance, and that was the first lesson I ever had in budgeting, as I had to save that money to buy video games, etc… that I wanted. 🙂
Trevor @ Financial Nut´s last blog post..Budgeting Software Review: “Forcasting Made Simple” With A New Software Called Pocketsmith
This topic has been weighing on my mind lately. We have a 3 year old daughter and we’re trying to figure out ways to teach her to use money wisely. Of course, she will make her own choices and even the best parenting isn’t insurance against your children making mistakes but it usually leads to wiser choices. That’s my hope. We need to begin soon, though…
Jerry
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my husband & i don’t have kids yet…but i’m truly hoping we come to some sort of agreement before kiddos enter the picture. we were raised very differently in regard to financial decisions–& luckily both of us turned out to have similar values…executing how we’ll raise our kids will likely depend on the child.
i was given no allowance…and got a large chunk of money each month from my parents to cover gas & “wants”. i chose (was not forced) to bring my lunch to school each day (even though i was given lunch money), i only bought things on sale (again, never forced), had a checking account at age 16 & a credit card at age 18–never overdrawing or spending frivilously…if i needed extra money, my parents were happy to hand it over, knowing that i’d make smart decisions with it. they taught me the basics (balancing check books, etc.) & then just let me fly with it…no “sit down & talk” lessons needed.
my husband, on the other hand, obviously needed more discipline. he was given a very small allowance, had chores, & was paid from odd jobs around his parents’ home & babysitting, etc. he spend money like it was going out of style…didn’t get a checking account until late high school & didn’t have a credit card until late college–both of which were closely monitored by his parents.
i think our story is a testament to the need to be flexible in teaching money management with children–we’ll likely base our teaching style on the personality traits of the kids. 🙂 great topic…
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I haven’t been blessed with little ones yet, but I do teach kinder. We talk about money as part of our curriculum in many ways…the value of each coin, why mom and dad have a job, needs vs. wants, etc. One of the most interesting conversations that always comes of this (and I encourage wholeheartedly!) is how to make things easier on mom and dad. When the kids realize that their parents are trading time away from them for money so they can have things, it hits home. It usually sparks a discussion of things you can do for free to have fun, ways to help around the house, how to take care of their things and WHY they should, and how to get through a shopping trip without asking for something they’re barely going to play with. We also talk about taking care of things in the classroom…would you rather that I have to spend money to buy the same things over and over because they are being damaged, or buy something new for us? I never know if those conversations make any long-term change, but I try to plant the seeds 🙂
I've been seeing some benefits lately from letting our young children experience and work with money. My post is here. Interesting to read the prior comment about different personality styles… something for me to think about, as my children are VERY different in the way that they handle, well, everything. 🙂
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Once kids know how to count it is important to teach them about money. You can give them token econmy systems within the home and if you don’t let them buy anything that they can’t afford they will learn to appreciate the money that they earn.