Teaching Kids About Money
Over a year ago, I talked about teaching Abigail a little bit about money. It involved spending her piggy bank, a massive fish, and a trip to Target. You can read about it HERE.
But, as kids tend to do, she has gotten older and smarter and we’ve continued to teach her more about spending and saving and money in general.
So I thought today it would be fun to share a few things about teaching kids about money!
Teaching Kids About Money:
The easiest way to teach is by reading! We have a few books that are great for teaching kids about money:
The Berenstain Bears’ Trouble With Money
We love the Berenstain Bears in this house!
This book is particularly great because it talks about working odd jobs to earn some extra money, saving for things you really want, and how/why you should open a savings account at the bank and earn interest.
Curious George Saves His Pennies
Along with the bears, we love this curious little monkey!
This book also talks about working odd jobs to save up for something you really want, but it also tells a valuable lesson about sharing and in the back of the book it teaches about the different coins, bills, and their values. Pretty cool!
Another thing we have started doing is giving Abigail a small allowance + having her tithe in the offering plate.
We don’t give her an allowance for helping around the house yet.
We haven’t really ironed out the kinks of our plans for that, plus we kind of just want her to do those things.
As our current agreement stands, if she is a good girl during church service(the kids in our church sit with the adults during worship + sermon) then we give her fifty cents. We also give her an additional dime to place in the offering plate.
It has been a great opportunity for her to learn how long it takes to save vs spend, how giving a portion of our money back to God is important, and if she behaves herself during the service because of it, well, win-win for us all.
This is great!! We have talked to Cam about his money….he doesn't earn any yet, but my uncle always gives him a couple of dollars to put in his piggy bank. When we bought his bike, we asked him if he wanted to use his piggy bank money for it, and he kind of understood that he was losing all of his money! He was ok with it and was pretty excited about buying the bike with "his" mother (even though we paid for money of it). I do want to figure out a way to start teaching him about money, though. I always divided up my money into three categories: save, spend and give.
I love this 🙂 so cute !!!!
I had that Berenstain Bears book! Its great to see good classic books with values and lessons transcend the times. Because I don't have kiddos I can't offer any advice but my parents never paid me an allowance and I never asked for money. Not sure how that all worked out but I am overly independent now as an adult.
I still have my copy of the Berenstain Bears Trouble with Money from when I was a kid! That series was my absolute favorite growing up! Now the son does the series and they've added a baby cub and it is faith based, l-o-v-e it. I just realized we probably should have the money discussion now…
Such a great idea! We need to start doing something with money for Mac – he's been curious about it recently, so it's time. I love the Berenstain Bears books too!
Oh I love this idea!!!! Lily is always wanting some monies for her piggy bank. We love the BB collection. They have such great life lessons!
Aria likes the concept of getting and saving money in her piggy bank. Beyond that we haven't ventured yet. I agree though about having any allowance type thing separate from chores, those are just what you do as part of the family not to get money.
I LOVE that you give Abigail an allowance to tithe! And my husband would love that you're teaching her about money so young (his favorite thing to do is budget – he's weird).
We've just started teaching Callie about money and I always think of your fish post! I love that she's got an allowance not tied to chores. I def want to check out those books too! Callie is all about saving her money for new ipad games right now so anything to help teach savings and why sounds great!
That's why she is so quiet in church 😉 hehe! I have a hard time on the chore part too. Certain things should be done because they are expected, and I won't pay for those. I have thought about one of those Extra $ boards only with a chore and the money you will get for doing it. Mine would just offer 1/4 of the amount you see on Pinterest ;). Hey, they don't know any better right?!
We'll see you soon. Earlier tonight Emily was SO excited about seeing Abigail tomorrow, which I thought was really sweet.