7 Fun Ways to Teach Your Children About Saving Money

Money matters – and this is an important life lesson that you need to impart to your children whether they are toddlers or teenagers. We often direct our energies and resources towards education, skill and hobby development, extracurricular activities, etc. for our children. But not much thought is often given to teaching them about the value of money and savings. Inculcating financial awareness at a young age can go a long way in helping your child build a secure life and be financially responsible. It does not matter how old your child is, because it is really never too late to start with financial education and helping them develop saving as well as spending habits.

1. Play board games for fun and money lessons

Games like Monopoly, The Game of Life, Payday, Moneywise Kids, etc. are wonderful means to educate your child about money related matters. Apart from spending quality time with lots of fun, you also end up teaching a few lessons regarding money management involving allowances, necessary spending, saving, how to spend, budgeting, insurances, exigencies, etc.

2. Allow handling money at an early age

Handling money can be exciting for children so use this technique to introduce money to your child. Let them count the coins or bills they get for a real feel of money. In addition to this, you can set up ‘Pretend Shops’ like in Monopoly and let them come buy stuff from you by paying physical money and teach them how to spend in real shops or stores in the process.  You can also allow them to pay for smaller transactions at local stores in your presence and let them keep the change in their piggy bank as an incentive.

3. Organize treasure hunts

Treasure hunts can be good fun and you can use this concept to ask your child to find some hidden money that they can keep for themselves. You can hide bills of lower denominations, keep coins with every clue that your child can look around for till they reach the final ‘treasure’ that is theirs to keep. Younger kids can learn counting and recognizing bills and coins in this manner.

4. Use colorful containers to save for different goals

Children love playing with colors and you can make money saving an interesting task with colorful containers. Use jars or boxes of various colors for different goals, like blue one for a toy, a red one for bills or green one for coins, another color for a vacation fund or a special envelope for ‘Do not touch or spend’ fund. Put their craft skills to use to label and decorate these boxes.

5. Let them search your pockets

Tell your child to search your pockets for some cash everyday as you get back from work or from a shopping trip or on any other designated day. Allow them to keep whatever they find with denominations up to a certain value like a ten or five rupee coin, fifty rupee note, etc. that they can add to their piggy bank. Also if you end up getting these denominations from any transaction, hand them over to your children as a rule to encourage saving. You can also give these currencies that you accumulate at the end of each week.

6. Pay for tasks and chores

You can teach your children about how to earn by paying them for tasks they perform for you. Set a monetary value for every chore like walking the dog, tidying their own room, etc. or for the older children it could be clearing the dishes or throwing garbage, etc. Encourage them to save what they earn and train them at domestic chores as well. You can also bargain for minutes of TV or internet time that they give up as an extra bonus.

7. Take your child grocery shopping

Tag along your children each time you go grocery shopping for some quality time and educating them. This can be a rewarding exercise in terms of spending habits because you can teach your child to look for prices of household items, compare them, and check out offers, etc. while you shop for essentials, sticking to a budget at the same time.  Kids can also take some money from their savings when they accompany you to buy low priced stuff like chocolates or stationery. Allow them to pay, calculate and get change at the counter under your supervision to start training them at an early age.

Start with these simple yet effective practices, to help your child save, spend and take sound financial decisions as they grow up. Try to have interesting conversations around this issue and communicate depending upon your child’s age so that dealing with money seems fun. Tutoring your child about financial matters can be complex, but is certainly achievable through simple techniques. All you need is to be patient and come up with innovative, fun ways.