Show them the money?
My kids are a long ways from needing to know the ins and outs of interest rates and other financial rates. But this story about how little high school seniors know about the basics of personal finance has me wondering at what age parents should start teaching their children about basic spending and saving. How young is too young for an allowance? Should there be limits on how much can be saved and spent? I’d love to know what been there, done that parents chose to do and what they learned. –Christy
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When my Son was three I got him an old pickle jug to save his pennies in. Whenever he would collect 108 pennies we would walk over to the Dollar Store where he could buy one diecast airplane. On his fourth birthday he received a birthday card with $5 from a neighbor. He handed the five dollar bill back to our neighbor and said, “Can I have a penny instead? The store only takes pennies.”
We started at age 5 with our son–soon after being adopted thru DHS. We made a wooden board with verticle slots for nickels arranged in 50 cents columns with $5 total for the board. (Helped with counting and math by writing with pencil on the board.) We made a list of daily tasks for which he could earn a coin. Do the task, earn a coin; don’t and lose a coin. We had to start very simple because he had almost zero parenting up until then. Five cents just for wiping and flushing! (His jobs have advanced since then.) One column was labeled “savings”, one for “Kids Club” every Friday at school, and one for “tithe” (sorry, we’re Christians). We filled up starting with tithe then to savings then to Kids Club and then to the rest of the board. He “cashed in” his board every Saturday evening. Also, we set up a “Dad Mart” in a dining room corner where I purchased fun things for him to buy from Dad Mart. And….when he had trouble remembering to take off his socks to run in the grass/dirt, he had to buy his socks from Dad Mart. (This week, he was finally able to buy a bow tie from Dad Mart.) He seemed to be motivated more to “keep” his money than to “earn” it so we’ve turned the process around some. He gets a full board on Monday and has to do his jobs to keep his money but he can do extra jobs to earn money (only if the “usual” jobs are done tho). His older (biological) sister had a board too. She is 11 now and she has a dime board. The kids seem to love it….they like to show off their coin boards when anyone comes over.