This week, I’m sharing with you 5 things I’m going to teach my kids about money. I have 2 young children and a 3rd on the way, so there are some things I need to wait until later to teach my kids, but one of the first things you can begin to teach your kids, even when they’re toddlers, is today’s lesson: Give and save before you spend.
More specifically, I am teaching my kids about how to allocate their piggy bank funds into 3 categories - giving, saving, & spending. My daughter receives a whopping $1/week in allowance, and she receives that allowance in dimes. We’ve taught her to allocate 10% to giving, 10% to saving, and the rest she can split as she chooses.
To help keep this visual and easier to understand for young kids, there are a lot of compartmentalized piggy banks that will allow your kids to separate the funds on their own. It’s important to me that my kids prioritize giving and saving, rather than just hoarding all their money for themselves. If you have older kids, there are a lot of apps and tools out there to let them create the same buckets in their bank account or online wallet separate their funds in the same way.
Allocating their allowance builds a foundation for kids to be generous in serving the poor, delaying gratification and saving up for larger purchases, as well as establishing ratios for saving and giving that will be important for them to continue into adulthood.
On top of that, research shows that being generous makes you happier, and I see that in action as my daughter lights up when she gets to contribute her giving funds to the collection basket at church or when she gets to help me buy a toy for a needy child at Christmas. She is so happy that that little boy or girl had a more joyful Christmas because of her generosity, and she already has a big heart for the poor even though she isn’t in Kindergarten and can’t yet read.
That’s it for today. Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip.
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