This post was underwritten by BMO Harris Bank, which offers a matching $25 on a new savings account opened for your child through their Helpful Steps for Parents program. Learn more at bmoharris.com/parents.
Hey All!
Being a parent, parental figure, or guardian to a child is a hard job! Some people have what we call traditional families and some families don’t. Like single moms or dads for example or kids who’s parents are no longer with them and are being raised by a family member or sibling or foster family. Regardless what kind of family you have, we all have a responsibility to teach the children how to value and understand how to properly use money.
I know growing up I didn’t particularly have that when I was growing up. My mother was a shoppaholic! I kid you not. I was in Macy’s department store by 6 months. I knew the entire layout of the store by the time I was 2. I kid you not. My mom would ask me what floor is toys on, I would reply 7. Crazy I know! It got me in a financial pickle to say the least when I grew up. I had student loans and credit cars up the wazoo if you know what i mean.
I knew as soon as I had a kid of my own I would teach them how to save and handle money properly since I had to basically teach myself how to when I got older. I wanted to teach him as a child so he wouldn’t make the same mistakes I did. I like to show my teen there is more to life that he hasn’t seen and show him how big the world really is and how much he can experience in life if he doesn’t limit himself to one way of thinking.
Here is how I showed my kid how to understand and value Money. Hopefully it will help you too!
First off he’s always had an allowance since he was 6. It started off as a dollar. We gave him a spider man piggy bank so he can have a place to keep his money. And we taught him to always keep his money inside it and save. If he found change or if he heard Mommy swear I would put change in. Whatever money he got he learned to put it in the piggy bank. We taught him to count real money and we never used fake money. Since he learned that when his piggy bank is full we game him the option of making a fun trip to the bank like the Monopoly money guy to put it into bank, which was into his college savings but he didn’t know that, or to we could go out to get what every toy wants with the money he’s saved. We gave him the option and more often than not he wanted to go to the bank.
We also taught him that if he wanted to get something that was very expensive he would have to save to pay half the price of the item. Like he wanted the new xbox 360 with kinect, it’s like $400! Way too expensive for me. I told him if he wanted it his father and I would pay half. He agreed. He saved his christmas money and birthday money and now we have an xbox.
Another thing I taught him the value of Coupons and how they were like free money! There is nothing wrong with clipping coupons with your children. It’s a great way to spend time with your kids and it lets you teach them how to use them. It also helps them learn to bargain shop and to get the most for their dollar. I always tell him to try to keep as much money in your pocket as you can when you shop. If you can use coupons to pay for most of the items then that’s keeping your money in your pocket!
I would always say, “Money in the bank is money you can use for something else like paying for college tuition or for that new game you want.” I always taught him you always want to have money in the bank so you’re not struggling in the future for money.
We recently got him his first credit card that is a prepaid card. It allows us to teach your kids how to use credit and it also allows you to monitor how much your kid can spend on the card and it also shows us what he’s buying. This is a great way to teach your the responsibility of a credit card in my opinion. He’s been doing great with it and he makes sure to refill his card each month with his allowance money which is like paying his bill in full every month as if he had a real credit card. It really prepares them for the future so they won’t get into credit card debt.
These are all the ways I have taught my kid on how to understand money and the value of savings.
What are some of the ways you teach your children to save and understand money?
*****Disclosure: I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. To learn more about BMO Harris Bank, visit their website http://bmoharris.com/parents.*****
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