If you want your kids to have financial security throughout their lives, or to put themselves in a position whereby they have financial strength, the key to their success will lie in how they were taught about the value of money. This is something which shovel be instilled in the kids from an early age, so that they can learn to truly grasp what money is, how it can cause headaches and solutions, and how they can best manage their cash.
To help you to teach your kids in the best way possible, here are some tips which you should think about using.
Putting Them to Work
As early as it is possible, your children need to learn that money is never simply handed out to them, and that they must put the effort in. This is not to say that your 12 year old should be to hustling to make their money, but they should at least be cleaning cars or something in order to earn their pocket money. If you simply hand money over to your kids, they may very well grow up with an entitled attitude, a mindset which could come back to haunt them in the future.
Talking About Finances
As soon as my two boys hit the age of 10, I began to talk them through the family finances. For some reason there is a notion that all of this should be kept secret from the kids, but I have no idea why people think in this way. I spoke to my kids about how much money Mom and Dad were making each month, how much bills cost, how much we spent on the groceries and other spends which they would previously have had no idea about. At first I wasn’t sure if this would work, but after just a few weeks my eldest was asking if I had extra jobs for him to do, so that he could contribute some money to the home, little did he know that this money would have come from me, and then come back around, can’t fault the intent though!
Banking
Another aspect of finance which I wanted my kids to see was the bank, both digital and the local bank in our neighborhood. I began taking the kids when they were around 12, explaining to them about products like mortgages and loans, why people get them, and how they should go about using them properly.
Saving
The biggest lesson your kids can learn from you about money is how to save, and to do so I wouldn’t allow my kids to buy anything until they could afford dit twice over. This meant that the kids had to save $100 for a $50 pair of sneakers, encouraging them to always have some money in the bank. Another way that I encouraged the kids to save was throughout creating a competition between the two boys, with a cash prize for whoever could save the most in the given time. Teaching your kids to save will be invaluable to them in the future.
As soon as you feel that your kids are ready, you must invest time in teaching them how to value money.