Are You Teaching Your Kids Money Grows on Trees?

3/5/2021

Abracadabra! Money Magically Appears…

Especially when you make it appear easy to spend money by using a credit card.  The mystery of money is magical when you just swipe and walk away with whatever you want. 

They don’t get to see the cash exchanging hands. No counting out dollars and cents. No paying the credit card bill at the end of the month. It’s just Easy-peezy, lemon squeezy, get whatever you want. How cool is that?

So, let’s shake up the money tree and see what falls out. Here is where we find our culprit; the Money Monster. Just because the transaction itself is easy and spending money is easy doesn’t mean that growing the money tree is easy. 

We can help our children, our grandchildren and ourselves learn How To Tame The Money Monster™ with these 3 steps:

1. Set a Budget. Before you leave home set a budget. Clearly share with your child the amount you have available to spend and stick to it.
2. Pay with Cash. Allow children to see the money exchange hands.  They will understand the relationship between what they want and cold, hard cash.
3. Price vs Value. When you’re shopping with a child, discuss the importance of ‘you get what you pay for’. Compare prices of similar items and discuss differences in quality. Build the relationship between price and value. Then, when you check out at the register, let them see money change hands. 

Kids (especially young ones) need tangible ways to understand abstract concepts. So, it’s important to not just explain money principles, but give them concrete tools to practice them.

The goal here is to simply get comfortable talking about money as a family without stigma or stress. 

In the next blog I will share more tips on How To Tame The Money Monster™!