Ways to Help Children Save Money

To think of ways to help children save money can be an interesting challenge of your parenting skills. Developing ways to help your children save money provides them with priceless knowledge and insight to the value of money.

Saving money is not easy, especially within our current local, national and global
situations that are prevalent in the major industrial nations today (year of 2011).

There is some literature that chastises by laying blame on those people who were not proactive by not incorporating saving habits in the early years of their lives. While judgment of this sort is never justifiable, many people have endured great hardships during this economic downturn.

This one reason, alone, provides good reason to help children save money by teaching them the value of money.

Another benefit of finding ways to help children save money is that they not only learn the value of money but this knowledge is essential tool as they reach adulthood.

In a very real sense, the advertising media has created a jungle filled with all sorts of predator emotional animals with new names which appeal to our every appetite to enjoy "the good life" filled with the luxury of fine houses, cars, vacation houses, becoming beautiful, etc.

"What's a mother (father, parent) to do?"

Here a few ways to help you children to save money as well as creating an atmosphere of enthusiasm as their savings grow. Put on your "thinking cap" and add any other ways that you can think of to this list.

** Set an example by practicing what you are trying to teach. Discover and enjoy the free things in life. In my community, the businesses often join together and sponsor free concerts and other outdoor activities. Take advantage of them and socialize with your neighbors. Get your neighbors involved by organizing periodic block party events where everyone contributes food, tables or other dinnerware.

** Another idea would be to have a family contest to see who can save the most money in a jar within a specified period of time with a prize being awarded to the winner. This could be a special trophy that is passed from winner to winner.

** Find ways to help you children to save money by earning money doing jobs for family and/or friends. This can be jobs mowing, raking leaves, babysitting or by helping with chores in the house.

** Establish a savings account for each of your children at your financial
institution. This is an excellent way for them to learn to monitor their both their saving and spending activities in addition to the interest income that is added to their account balance.

Developing the ways to help you child save money can be a fun project involving the
participation of the members of the family and ultimately strengthening the bonds of your family in many unexpected ways.


























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Saving money is difficult in this day and age, especially with economies all over the world

failing, and especially with a lot of people scrambling to get money that they should have

saved years and years ago if only they had been more proactive. If you are regretting not

being able to save much earlier, now is not too late. First, you can start setting money

aside so that you can get more money to spend in the future. And second, you can teach your

own kids to save so that they do not end up in any financial messes from which they cannot

recover.

Saving money may not be an obligation for your kids, however, and it can therefore be

difficult for them to get any work done if they do not feel that spending and saving are

relevant to them. In fact, many kids are supported by their parents until they reach high

school or college, and their conception of the value of money, not to mention the value of

hard work, can be twisted, if not immature.

Moreover, with mass media structured the way it is, you need to contend with the social need

to spend, spend, and spend on luxury, novelty items, or to simply meet trends. How do you

bump up against this kind of mentality and save your kids from the poorhouse?

Here are a few tips that you could follow when you start thinking of how your kids should

save.

- Set a good example. It can be difficult for your kids to simply save when they see you

spending money at every chance that you get. Instead of going to the mall to get the latest

DVD player or flat screen TV, take your kids to the park on Sundays and have a nice family

lunch. Instead of going to a fancy restaurant routinely, go only on special occasions and

teach your kids to budget their money.

- Save visibly. Have a jar set out where you can drop pennies and other spare change so that

your children can see it eventually fill up. This way, they can set up their own jars too.

Have a contest and turn it into a race: see who can fill up their jars the fastest and you

can give more money to the best saver!

- Encourage your children to work over the summer. It can be hard to correlate work with

earning money, and you can start your children early with this kind of life lesson. Start

out small: give them small change for helping out with some chores, such as mowing the lawn,

raking leaves up, or cleaning the upstairs bedroom. Encourage your kids to get together with

their friends and put up a service, such as babysitting or house cleaning. Build on these

lessons until your children rely on their own resources for money and job hunting.

- Have a savings account exclusively in your children’s names, but do not hand them credit

cards! They need to have their own means to save and monitor their savings and spending, but

do not provide them with the illusion that money is easy to spend, and all that they need is

a piece of plastic.

- Have a Threshold Award. If your child reaches a certain point in his or her savings, offer

to add to a certain amount of money to his or her account as a reward.