Do you want your kids to learn about money but need help figuring out where to start? Parents often feel helpless when teaching kids about money, but kids need to learn about it from an early age. 

Many schools don’t teach financial literacy in their curricula, so parents must ensure their kids understand how money works. Read on for some tips for teaching kids about money at every age. 

The Importance of Financial Literacy

It’s a good idea to start teaching your kids about money while they are young. Many kids leave home with little knowledge about managing their money or even basic economics like inflation. This lack of knowledge leads to bad financial decisions that can cost them for years.

By letting your kids get experience managing money when they’re young, you’ll enable them to make wise decisions once they’re adults.

The Allowance Debate

For your kids to learn how to manage money, they need their own money. Many kids earn an allowance by doing chores. Many experts now say that chores and allowance shouldn’t be connected. 

Kids need to feel a sense of responsibility for helping to take care of their home instead of doing everything for money. All members of the family should work together to keep things running smoothly.

Most experts suggest that kids be given an allowance as a teaching tool. If you also want to help them understand the concept of earning money, consider giving them extra cash when they do something extra, like organizing the garage.

Money Lessons by Age

Below are some of the best ways to teach your kids about money at every age.

Preschoolers

Many preschoolers are still working on counting. It’s a great time to introduce them to the different coins and bills. You can also help them understand simple conversions, like how many pennies are in a nickel, dime, quarter, and dollar.

To help kids understand the value of a dollar, encourage them to save up for things they want. Don’t just buy them items that they want. Let them use their allowance. Kids this age often want to spend money as soon as they get it. Encourage them to save for more expensive items. 

Elementary Kids

With elementary kids, you’ll reiterate what you taught them as preschoolers. You can continue to give them an allowance and pay them commissions for extra work.

It’s also a great time to introduce spend-save-charity jars. When your kids get money as allowance or gifts, they divide it between the jars. 

They can spend the money in the spend jar on whatever they want. The saving jar can either go into a long-term savings account or can be used to save for a larger item, like a tablet. Money from the charity jar gets donated to a charity of your child’s choice.

Tweens and Middle Schoolers

Continue with the spend-save-charity jars. You may also consider getting your child a checking account or a debit card that you can reload.

It’s also a fantastic time to teach your child about savings accounts and debts. Kids this age are ready to learn about interest and how it can work for or against them.

You can also teach your child about consumerism and how marketing strategies work to get them to buy things.

High Schoolers

High school is the time to ensure your kid fully understands debt, particularly credit card debt and student loan debt. Many college students find themselves in debt quickly after getting their first credit card.

You may even want to help your child take out a credit card so that they can start to build up credit. You can also monitor their charging and help them make wise decisions about what they spend.

Help your kids learn about different forms of debt, such as mortgages, personal loans, and payday loans.

Wrapping Up

In the current economic state, it’s essential to raise a financially literate kid. When kids get exposed to money early on, they get comfortable with how it works. You’ll help your child obtain a better understanding of how finances work so they can make the best decisions as they move into adulthood.