Help your kids become money-savvy!

It is never too early nor too late to understand Financial Literacy. In fact, most parents wish to instill good financial habits in their child at an early age. However, finding ways to grasp their young child’s attention is difficult. Moreover, making them understand the importance of saving, budgeting, and spending with their $5 daily allowance can prove to be quite a challenge.

Although everyone is accustomed to a different learning style. Here are some tips to make finance enjoyable and digestible for your kids.

Make use of banks programmes
Banks such as OCBC offers the “Mighty Saver” programme which gives the child 20 stickers for each dollar that they save. Each time they save S$20 and finish pasting all the stickers, they can go to any OCBC and exchange a small token and the next 20 stickers.

The stickers are vibrant, cute and interesting as their design changes every month. Although the tokens and stickers may serve as the kid’s motivation, the kids get to realize the good of saving and the fun in saving.

Let them use cash
Indeed the world is transforming into a cashless society. However, you may want to keep the credit card spending to a minimum when you are out with children.

Using cash teaches children that spending money isn’t just scanning the card and you can get what you want. Let your child see the money leaving their hands.

Best still, pass them the money and let them spend it. Some may argue that this promotes bad spending habit. However, with a fixed amount they will learn to plan and only spend on what they really want and not just ask for anything. At the same time, they get to get what they want and even try to mimic the act of spending actual money.

Games
Games such as Monopoly is also a great way to make finance interesting for kids. In this game, they get a fixed amount of money in the beginning. Throughout, they get to earn money and lose money as they continue to play the game.

To win they have to be the last player standing that is not left bankrupt. Although they may not understand the meaning of it, they will learn how to spend wisely and many other strategies along with it.
image credit: Poki

Grocery Shopping budgeting
Do you ever budget for your grocery shopping? If you don’t this may be a good time to start. Try to do the budget with your kids. Not only do they learn how to have a balanced meal, they get to choose what to buy which is interesting for them.

At the same time, they also learn to buy items with a certain budget so they will learn to get only want they need and not everything they want. There won’t be anymore argument for how they want to buy candies anymore since they get to put it in their budget if they have enough!

Decorate Piggy Bank together
Allow your kids to decorate the piggy bank with you. With a self-decorate piggy bank, they are certainly more likely to want to ‘feed’ the piggy bank. It is also best to get a transparent piggy bank so the kids can see their progress.

Allowing them to see their progress will keep them motivated as they actually see the money increasing each time they save money.

Create a spending system at home
Create money with your kids and when your kids do something right, for example, finish their homework or do chores, give them the ‘money’. When they want to buy ice cream or toys let them use that money and exchange with you for real money to buy it themselves.

In this way, they get to learn that they have to earn money to spend them. At the same time, you can also monitor what they spend the money on since you only give them actual money only after they tell you what they want to spend it on.

In conclusion, it is important to teach your kids to be financially literate at a young age as it will affect their mindset as they grow. Do try out these methods and comment if they work!