How you handle your money is probably a direct response to how your parents treated money when you were a child as well as how they taught you how money works. Now that you have children it is time to consider how to give financial tips to your kids about how to handle their money. If you have not thought about it yet, there are a few financial tips to consider along the way.
You want to teach them the value of cash while instilling the principle of wise investing and long term savings. You will need to link money to being a reward for work at different stages in their lives.
Financial Tips for Kids
For younger children, ages five to ten, it is all about learning the basics of how money works. It can be fun teaching them how to buy something at the grocery store and get their change back. They need to be able to handle the notes and coins and also count their change.
When they get a bit older, ages ten to fifteen, it is time for them to understand the link between work and money for a reward. Household chores are a good way to start off. Once they get some money from those chores they will need a place to save it and need to start setting spending, saving, and investment goals. This is a good time to start building good habits from these useful financial tips.
The next stage, ages fifteen years and above, is the best time for them to begin understanding long term saving and investing goals. A job outside of the home will help them learn about work in the real world. Your financial tips will really begin to come in handy here. Matching their savings can encourage them to invest their pay checks instead of just spending them. They will also need to start buying some of the basic necessities of life now. Let them know what it is like to spend their hard earned cash on the normal things we all need every day.
Along the road somewhere you will have to draw a line. If you overindulge your kids you will see the effects. Use financial tips to help them grow as people and learn how to invest in themselves. Saving for big ticket items and knowing that you are not an ATM is something that all kids need to learn at some point and the financial tips you give them when they are young will stay with them for life.
