Help Your Children To Save Their Own Money

In this short article we’re going to look at the five top tips to help you advise your children when it comes to saving money.

We know saving money isn’t always easy and more often that not unwanted obstacles can stop us along the way, but we think teaching your children to be sensible with money at a young age is massively beneficial and creates positive habits leading into adult life.

IDENTIFYING NEEDS AND WANTS

The most important thing is to help your children define their needs and wants when it comes to spending.

Differentiating the two is key to help them understand that needs include essential items that you need to do and survive. These include things such as food, water and living expenses. Letting them know afterwards that wants are things we don’t necessarily need to survive and are extra expenses on top of everyday living such as new smartphones, bikes and even trips out.

We find going round the home and asking them to identify needs and wants is a handy little exercise, and will help them easily identify needs and wants in everyday life.

SAVING GOALS

Helping children really understands saving goals is highly important so we suggest putting this into action if there’s something they really want. If there is something they want to save for then go ahead and help them split their goal into small chunks helping them to stay focused and achieve their goal.

If they want to save for a new computer game say £50 then help them understand it’s going to take them to save and a realistic goal if they save X amount each week.

This simply allows them to fully appreciate the concept of saving and how sensible saving helps achieve reasonable purchases.

POCKET MONEY

If you really want to teach your children the importance of sensible spending and saving it’s important to introduce pocket money early on in life. Pocket money in exchange for household chores is another great idea, teaching value in exchange for working hard.

When handing over pocket money it’s important to explain why they have earned it and what it could potentially be used for, this also becomes handy when trying to explain they can save for items in the future and introduce healthy spending habits they can continue using for the rest of their lives.

INTRODUCE INCENTIVES

Helping your children achieve spending goals won’t always be easy especially when it comes to them achieving bigger purchases so to help them along the way introduce incentives along the way this will keep things fun and enjoyable.

Things aren’t expensive these days and we know how hard the struggle can be so introducing incentives provide a reward for you and the little ones and can often be enjoyed by both parties.

KEEPING TRACK

Being a good saver means keeping track of spending and saving along the way, so helping your children to understand this is also massively important. You could help your children keep track of their spending every week by using charts and spreadsheets.