Wall Street Journal: Making Kids Money Savvy – Try These Four Financial Tricks

Here’s an interesting article at the Wall Street Journal talking about some ways to help make your kids more “money savvy”. Tips include:

• Give them a smaller allowance now, or a bigger one if they wait, teaching them to save and practice delayed gratification
• Teach them about spending slower. People tend to spend money faster if they have smaller bills (5 $10 bills as opposed to a $50 bill). Teach them by switching weeks with same allowance, different denominations.
• Help them make a wish list instead of buying things for them right away. This way you can review the wish list in a few days, and often they’ll realize that they don’t need or want the item anymore.
• Teaching them the value of money by giving them some ownership of them money. Make them feel like they’re spending their own money, and they’ll often feel like saving, instead of spending. For example, if giving them money for a field trip, tell them they can keep whatever they don’t spend. Often, they’ll save it instead of spending it. If telling them they have to give you the change back, they’ll often spend it all.

Although I’m not a parent, I can see how these ideas might be helpful for someone with kids. Hopefully we’ll be blessed with children some day too so we can try them out!

LINKS:
WSJ.com
Gather Little By Little: The Benefits of Delayed Gratification

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