Show the the money
Parents around the world face the constant challenge of providing for their families, be it emotionally or financially. We need to carefully plan for the future of our family and make sure we have enough savings for daily living, health care, tuition, retirement, and rainy days. No matter what kind of career path you chose after your studies, the skills of budgeting and money management become imperative once you have established a little nest of your own! To make sure our kids are going to be well prepared for what’s coming, we need to start introducing to them the concepts of money at a young age.
Baby Steps
So how should we introduce this relatively complex idea of money and savings to our 3-year-old? Apparently, according to this article, there is a right age for learning certain concepts about money starting from the idea of saving. I grew up owning piggy banks of various sizes and forms, but the idea and benefit of having a transparent one never occurred to me until now. Indeed, it could help our little ones to understand better the effect of saving money when they can see the piggy bank is filled up in time, or the money level would go down after they spent some of their savings.
Want vs Need
When the kids get a bit older, apart from getting some money at their birthdays or holiday seasons, they might also get to earn some from helping you with little jobs around the house. This might also be the time when they start discussing with their friends about wanting the most popular toy that everyone is obsessed about that summer, giving us the best occasion to teach them about thinking about what they would like to spend their hard-saved money on. On many occasions, the kids need to be able to tell “needs” from “wants” and make their decision accordingly.
Budget it in
The last but most important thing for the children to learn is budgeting, this skill is super important as they grow older and need to start learning about managing their finances before they venture out into the real world on their own. Our older daughter is going to present a budget to us for her university tuition and living expenses as part of her high school project. Good occasion to me to take a “refresher” course on budgeting too!
Stay Sparky!!