How to Teach Money Saving to Your Kids

 Importance of Teaching Children About Financial Responsibility 

• Learn how to build beautiful houses: Money is not inherently good or bad – it’s just how you use it. If you give a carpenter a hammer, they can build a beautiful birdhouse. If you give a child a hammer, they can easily wreck a birdhouse by accident. If your child doesn’t know how to use money, it’s more likely they’ll be scared of utilizing money’s powers for good, for example through investments and building a credit score. Teaching children the value of and around money is key to minimizing any reckless behaviour and financial debt.

• Minimize adult debt: Adults between the ages of 18-29 have increased millennial debt to $515.9 billion due a lack of financial education, credit card temptation, and a fluctuating job market. Helping your child understand the risk of cash flow in and cash flow out from a young age will get your child practising these saving habits early on.

• Appreciate what you have: Money is constantly around us. It brings food on the table, buys new toys, and of course, a lack of money can also take that all away. Children won’t understand the fluidity of money if they don’t understand where it comes from, so they can easily take it for granted. The appreciation for money comes from having an open conversation with your kids and being transparent to their questions.

 How to Raise a Financially Responsible Child 

• Do as you say: The best way to motivate your children is to showcase responsible money managing behaviours yourself. This will also be beneficial to you when dealing with major living costs to keep the family happy, such as grocery bills and music lessons. The teacher can’t teach the student, if they don’t know how to incorporate these behaviours in their own daily lives.

• Start the conversation: You don’t want to pass adult stress off to your children, however, it’s important to be realistic when starting the conversation about budgeting. The more you talk about things like saving now and getting more money later, either for a new toy or college savings, the more opportunity you give your child to start practising themselves. This can be a good way to also spend time with your child as they start growing up and make decisions for themselves.

• Teach yourself before you teach them: More than 60% of parents said that children in the US aren’t learning enough about money management in schools. If this isn’t on your kid’s curriculum, why not become the teacher yourself? Start by reading a few money management books yourself or even start listening to money saving podcasts and maybe you can learn a few things to improve your own budgeting behaviour.

• Make it fun: Talking about money doesn’t have to be uncomfortable and overwhelming. The last thing you want to do is scare your kids. Openly talking about the structure of saving with your kids, or even getting them involved with little transactions can help them to become more confident with money handling. Why not let them make the grocery list with you and let them figure out how to stay within the weekly budget? Or, you can even get your child involved with paying the bills, so they can see the cause and effect of actions, such as energy use from your Oncor Energy bill.
   

 Conclusion 

Money can be put to really good use, like when you start saving and investing, and if you have enough, can even buy you and your children a fun day out as a treat from your saving. Openly talking about the value of money and teaching your kids how to save from an early age will help them be more confident handling money responsibly a