Teaching Personal Finance to Your Children
Your daily routine provides a number of teachable moments.
They grocery shop with you, they watch you go to work, they love the spending money you give them, they listen to how you feel and think about money.
All impressionable moments they keep with them.
Give them a healthy respect for money.
It's not the end all and be all, however, it's necessary to manage it properly in order to function in a healthy way.
If you don't already, let them know why you're going to work.
Let them know that it takes working day in and day out to make money to pay for everything in the home.
The food, the video games, the clothes etc.
Seeing you get up every day and going to work provides the impression of financial responsibility that lets them know that they too eventually will work for an organization or themselves one day and have to be consistently responsible.
This is especially true on the rough days.
The rainy days, the semi sick days, the minor headache days, the bad mood days.
Let them know that it's those days that you must get through to be financially responsible.
It obviously also gives them a healthy work ethic but it's part of the necessary process for them to consistently work and bring home a steady paycheck to pay bills.
Piggy banks or child friendly safes are a great way for them to get started saving when they are very young.
Let them put their spare change in them so they can know that money is not just for spending.
Every so often you can sit down with them and see how much they've accumulated and tell them that this is money for a future goal.
A toy, a store trip, college or whatever other goal you decide with them.
Letting them have their own bank savings account is a great way to teach them financial responsibility and balance.
Let them make the deposits to their savings accounts.
Help them fill out the deposit slip for their deposit.
Take the time and let them stand on line in the bank and make the deposit to the account.
When their statement comes in the mail give it to them unopened so they can open and read their monthly statement.
Give them a folder for keeping track of all their deposits and statements.
Choose a consistent amount for them to contribute.
For instance, if you give them $9 spending money, give them $1 for their savings account.
The dollar amount is not the important part.
What is important is that they learn the behavior of consistently saving.
Try to choose a bank that is close to home or school that way at some point during the week you can make time to visit the bank for the savings contribution.
Time constraints are a serious challenge however, try your best to keep these appointments.
Remember, traditional school classes are not teaching this kind of money management behavior so this is the role that you can play to fill that void.
They have to learn this behavior to function well in the real world.
They grocery shop with you, they watch you go to work, they love the spending money you give them, they listen to how you feel and think about money.
All impressionable moments they keep with them.
Give them a healthy respect for money.
It's not the end all and be all, however, it's necessary to manage it properly in order to function in a healthy way.
If you don't already, let them know why you're going to work.
Let them know that it takes working day in and day out to make money to pay for everything in the home.
The food, the video games, the clothes etc.
Seeing you get up every day and going to work provides the impression of financial responsibility that lets them know that they too eventually will work for an organization or themselves one day and have to be consistently responsible.
This is especially true on the rough days.
The rainy days, the semi sick days, the minor headache days, the bad mood days.
Let them know that it's those days that you must get through to be financially responsible.
It obviously also gives them a healthy work ethic but it's part of the necessary process for them to consistently work and bring home a steady paycheck to pay bills.
Piggy banks or child friendly safes are a great way for them to get started saving when they are very young.
Let them put their spare change in them so they can know that money is not just for spending.
Every so often you can sit down with them and see how much they've accumulated and tell them that this is money for a future goal.
A toy, a store trip, college or whatever other goal you decide with them.
Letting them have their own bank savings account is a great way to teach them financial responsibility and balance.
Let them make the deposits to their savings accounts.
Help them fill out the deposit slip for their deposit.
Take the time and let them stand on line in the bank and make the deposit to the account.
When their statement comes in the mail give it to them unopened so they can open and read their monthly statement.
Give them a folder for keeping track of all their deposits and statements.
Choose a consistent amount for them to contribute.
For instance, if you give them $9 spending money, give them $1 for their savings account.
The dollar amount is not the important part.
What is important is that they learn the behavior of consistently saving.
Try to choose a bank that is close to home or school that way at some point during the week you can make time to visit the bank for the savings contribution.
Time constraints are a serious challenge however, try your best to keep these appointments.
Remember, traditional school classes are not teaching this kind of money management behavior so this is the role that you can play to fill that void.
They have to learn this behavior to function well in the real world.
Source...