How to help your children save

It’s not uncommon to start noticing your own traits in your children long before you intentionally teach them things. They may walk like you, have the same mannerisms, or even come out with some alarming phrases you never meant them to overhear. How would you feel if they picked up exactly the same spending habits as you have? Or if they’re in the same position financially when they’re older than you’re in now?

Not many of us would be happy with the last one, not because we’re necessarily in a bad financial position, but because we want them to be better off than we are. So, if you do want your children to pick up better financial habits than you, what are you doing to teach them about financial literacy now?

No need to stress, if you haven’t thought about it just yet, we have a few tips to get your kids financially literate before they even know what that phrase means!

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It’s never too early to start teaching your kids about money, and some financial experts say by implementing learning processes from as young as three can really help them later in life. Three being an age where they can begin to grasp financial concepts like saving and spending.  Particularly in this day and age where most of the exchanged money is invisible – through credit cards and bank transfers, it is harder for little ones to wrap their heads around money being a tangible thing. By talking to them often about how much things cost, you’ll help them see the ‘invisible’ money as a real tangible item.

Show them the reward process

Saving can be very rewarding and it’s not too hard to show your kids how. You could give them a piggy bank and teach them the value of money by rewarding them for doing chores around the house. Show them the value of saving their hard-earned cash for something they really want, and how rewarding it feels to finally cash in and purchase their items.

Use tech

We’re all guilty of giving our kids those bright devices as a distraction once in a while, even though we swore we never would. Phones and tablets don’t have to be all bad though, with advances in technology and ALL the apps available on the market, you can make saving a game for your kids by downloading them. Apps like Spriggy are developed for kids to use and can make the whole saving process fun!

Monkey see…

Monkey do! We know that our little ones learn more by example than by speech. As much as we wish we could just tell them what to do and they’ll obey, showing them how to save in practice will do far more for them than a lecture on the benefits.

Get your kids involved by opening bills with them and teaching them about every day things that cost money. You could get them to write up a shopping list of everything you need and research how much the week’s groceries are going to cost. That way you can show them that those extra sweets they want at the end of the shop can add to the grocery bill – it gives an extra reason to say no!

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