When my boys were 3 and 4, they drew on the walls with crayon. I thought that I would teach them a financial lesson and tell them that they needed to pay me a “cleaning fee” with the money they were collecting. My oldest was devastated, but my youngest just walked over to the piggy bank, pulled out some dollars and cheerfully said, “Here you go!” I knew then that my kids had different opinions of money. Even today almost ten years later, the older one loves to earn it and while the youngest loves money, he doesn’t want to invest a tremendous amount of effort to make it — no matter how much I tried to teach them.
The bottom line is that all kids are different and there is no hard and fast way to teach them about money, but I do have a few suggestions that you might try…..
The “Allowance” game.
There is a game out there called the Allowance Game. My kids loved it. You go around the board and earn money from various things like chores, newspaper routes, babysitting, etc. But you also land on spaces that cause you to lose money as well such as overdue library books, accidentally breaking a window with a baseball, or spending money for a friend’s birthday present. You can find the used version on eBay for as low as $6.00 (I looked this morning).
The newspaper route of doom!
My kids have had a weekly newspaper route for two months now. They spend an hour and a half every Thursday delivering the local small town paper. Once a month, they have to deliver it to everyone in that area so it takes two hours on that day. The worst part is that they only make $9 a month. They hate it but they agreed to do it until the holidays are over. I am hoping for a couple things on this: that they value hard work, and it can be a good job reference for the job they want when they are able to start working.
Savings account
If my dad found out that I had money, he would make me donate the whole amount to my bank account for college. I don’t think that this was the wisest choice because I just learned to hide all money from him. What may have been more effective would be to have them donate a small percent (15%) in the savings accounts. This tried and true method is one of the easiest ways of watching money grow.
The “realistic” lemonade stand
You knew that I would mention this, but I promise that the kids will learn about money if they do it correctly! By “correctly” I mean that the kid should have to pay for his or her own poster board, lemonade and cups. This is so they can see that for any business there are expenses. For maximum effect, they should even make the lemonade themselves. Now I know that the kids may not want to go to all of this work. What I do is give them a break on chores if they decide to do it. Usually they will opt for the lemonade stand instead of chores.
Just like anyone, kids will have to learn about money and credit cards on their own. Do you think that I was born knowing how to save money? Absolutely not. Most of my financial know-how comes from experience of getting out of debt, paying for school, being broke and saving money on my own. The important thing is at least to try to talk about money with your kids — and it becomes even better when you have some fun while doing it!
