Hey All!
In this day in age when the economy is just coming out of a recession, being a parent, parental figure, or guardian to a child, regardless what kind of family you have, I feel we all have a responsibility to teach the children of today how to value and understand how to properly use money. It’s never too early to tech children that you should save your money for things like retirement at an early age. I often wish my own mother would have done this for me, but in those days Social Security was considered your retirement plan and no one thought their children would not have access to it. So in this day in age it’s only right that we teach our kids how to plan for retirement and how to save and value their money.
I recently found this Genworth Easy Budget Calculator and it is a great resource for helping you learn how you can save for retirement, which will then help you to teach your children how they should save their money for things like retirement. I digress…
Here is how I’ve been showing my kids how to understand and value Money. Hopefully it will help you too!
First off, Michael has always had an allowance since he was 6. It started off as a dollar. We gave him a 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 it. We taught him to count real money early on and we never used fake play money. When his piggy bank became full we gave him two options. One was we could make a fun trip to the bank to deposit his money or he could use the money to buy a toy that he’s been really wanting with the money he’s saved. It’s good to give your children choices so that they can learn to make the right choices in life. More often than not he wanted to go to the bank. He enjoyed seeing his bank account grow as we would show him how much was in his account ever time he made a deposit. Twenty dollars seems like a million dollars to a child, so it’s always fun for them to see their money grow.
Now that he’s older we recently got him his first credit card that is a prepaid credit card. It allows you to teach your kids how to use credit and it also allows you to monitor how much your kid can spend on the card. 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. It’s like he’s paying his bill in full every month as if he had a real credit card. It really prepares kids for the future so they won’t get into credit card debt. It also helps prepare them for how to save money for things like retirement.
We are now showing him how to plan for retirement as most jobs now a days only come with 401k plans and you essentially have to save for your own retirement. We’re also doing this for ourselves as we need to save for retirement for ourselves as well. I found a great article that gives you Tips for Planning Your Retirement. It really showcases that it’s never too early to learn how to save for retirement.
How early do you think you should start teaching your kids about retirement and what are some of the ways you teach your children to save and understand money?
Welcome!
Comments
I wish my parents taught me about retirement. I honestly didn’t really start thinking about it until a couple of years ago when I had a talk about it with my father-in-law.
Well, my daughter’s 12 and we haven’t quite covered the whole retirement thing. We, ourselves, are just getting into that territory as my hubs job doesn’t pay into a pension plan (international law thing). Still, we began teaching our daughter about the value and use of money since she was a toddler. She’s actually quite good with managing what she has and knows to always check for a deal or sale 🙂
This is something I think about a lot
I think you should start teaching children about money really early on.
such an important topic
We haven’t started teaching our daughter about retirement, but I am personally taking steps to set up a retirement account for ME. 🙂
I must be doing something wrong, my sons spends his money as soon as he has it.
It’s never too early to start learning those lessons!
Our boys are 16 and 14, and I got them PayPal student cards to use when they want to buy stuff for the online game they play. I see exactly what they bought, who they bought it from. We don’t pay regular allowance, we expect them to help out around the house, take turns doing dishes every night, and then when they want something they ask.
This is really a very important topic to learn about early.
I wish we had started earlier, but it’s never to late.
Yes it is good to start early.
Breaking it down with a calculator and seeing real numbers could really help. Makes sense.
I don’t think it is EVER too early to teach children about money.
This is such an important lesson to teach our kids. It’s never too early to teach them budgeting and finance.
I wish my parents taught me about credit… I learned that lesson the hard way!
We will definitely be teaching our son from a very early age!
Great post!
Definitely important to teach them early on so they can avoid making costly mistakes later.
So important to start early
I wish I had started retirement planning earlier. Great tips.