#204 – Raising Money-Smart Kids: Your Ultimate Resource Guide

Now some parents love the idea of just given an allowance and a certain amount every week. Others like the idea to introduce chores, activities and responsibilities, whatever your preferences is great either way, this is just a tool so an app called I allowance would be a great choice. And so you download it on your you can have it on your phone and you can also put it on your kids device, whether it's an iPad, iPhone, or whatever else you have. And so it first of all allows you to manage their allowance and so then you can assign whatever tasks they're doing. If they are and they it's very visual, it can start to introduce these ideas of like that I was just talking about simply saving, spending and giving, it's all digital, it's really easy to use kind of like, you know, swipe and slide from one screen to another, and you can get the whole family involved. Now, for kids that are a little bit older, something called bankaroo, B, A N, K. A. R. O. O. Bankaroo, it's a virtual bank. Now, I think this is definitely for older kids. But it's a really safe environment to learn the value of money, the budgeting, how do you save for goals? How do you become responsible for with the saving? And as money comes in? And you starting to earn it? Like what do you actually do with it. And so it's really, it's like a virtual finances all in one spot. So I would probably not a four, four and a half year old resource, but I really been hearing a lot of good reviews on it. Now, there are a ton of different board games or games altogether that you can start to introduce, if you want to kiss stay away from screen now parents to you cannot go wrong with monopoly monopoly, Jr. And there are lots of different themes like one I got for Liam is Spidey in France, and there's Disney characters and Nemo. And so it teaches kids about buying, selling and how do you manage money. So we've all played Monopoly in the past, and I think it's one of those games that board games that you should have. At home. I also researched and found this one called Lake Shore Allowance game. Now again, going back to how do you want to teach the actual money concepts to kids and I am very big supporter of the fact that if you have an opportunity to touch and practice, like, so if you have real money that the kids can handle like coins and dollar bills, this game really allows for that, too. Now, of course, these are not real dollars and coins, but the concepts can be practice. So they they can, you know, there's a there's boards that they set up and the same thing, like they go through collectible coins, doing chores, and they deciding how they want to spend their earnings, where it's all going. So it's a little bit more of a you know, game, but still kind of reinforces those same concepts. I've put something really exciting together as well. As you can imagine, over the last three years, I've had a lot of different guests on my podcast. And it seems like this topic keeps coming up, right, because we're are focusing on families and working on all kinds of ideas and resources in what what else is out there. So I put together a playlist of all of the top podcasts that would be really useful for you to listen through. And actually the two of the podcast guests I mentioned, Dee and Jim are part of that resource list. Now for that, you will have to reach out to me directly. And I'm happy to share that my playlists link with you. But it called Coins and Kids playlists. And so it's a collection of all the episodes that are designed to help you as a parent to have these tools. And one of one of the few favorites. I think all of them are my favorite but one in particular, actually, to where we do talk about allowance. And we get in a lot of details there. And then which savings accounts do you actually set up for you kids savings and investment account. So I would love for you to get your hands on this playlist. And just it's a private podcast playlist that you can listen to on your own at any time. And I feel like all of those episodes are like evergreen that never go out of style. Now I want to take a little pivot here and just maybe share some ideas with you as to how you can help. If you have kids that are at Liam's age. I call them young learners, right? Like this is like the early four year olds, and so forth. And this is actually one of those interesting concepts that I learned from Dee, in our conversations. And when she started kids money Academy was that's the age where kids are starting to comprehend a lot more not just money questions, but just you know, life questions. And so age four is, is probably a good age to begin having these conversations. Now, when Liam was three I thought well, you know, I can start now but some of this stuff was not resonating even just like a simple. I simple thing is reading a book that talked about some of these money concepts. So these ideas that I was really looking at what do we do as a family? What kind of activities, intentionally or unintentionally, are happening that are, you know, are really worth noting. So here are just a few. First one is like a classic piggy bank, I know that all of you parents out there probably have one or you've gotten one when your child was born, I certainly have, and it has his cute name on it. And then we've gotten one later on as well. And so ours kind of sat on the shelf empty for a while until the idea was introduced, that you can start dropping coins and dollar bills into that. I think it's I think it's a good practice. Because it encourages the kids to save a portion of you know, if the money if they already have some, if they're starting to get into the into the chores around house, it gives them like this opportunity to touch and feel. So it's like a really tangible, the practical way to introduce the idea of saving the money. I haven't really gotten into the hardware we talk about, how do we take money out of the piggy bank, I mean, he knows like, there's way to open it. But it hasn't quite happened yet. So stay tuned for that. Okay, my next idea is, and I've bought two of these myself, just because they thought it was fun and engaging. But toy cash registers, I noticed that about two is because I bought one. And he was, you know, he wasn't old enough to really get a hang of it. And so it got broken. So I had to buy another one because I thought it was I still think it's a great tool. Now there are we start to like, you know, play the the whole idea of a pretend store, or it was actually his was cash register with a farmers market calendar. So he was selling, you know, groceries and all of that stuff. And I was the customer. And so it introduces the basic idea of counting things, exchange of money. And these toy cash registers are crazy. They had actual credit cards, so they had all of the technology built in and they have the actual monies, you can use the coins and and dollars, obviously, they're all fake, but or pretend. And then they also had a credit card and coupons and all kinds of stuff. And the thing is like, you take your kids with you to the grocery store, wherever you go, they are watching. They know it's like it's like it's an intuitive practice, that when they do sit down to actually play and imitate all of this, it's like, wow, how do you know these things? And so I think it's a really useful tool. And so if you make an A list of gifts that you may want to add to your Christmas shopping list, I think this would be a really, really cool item to do. And so something along those lines that go goes with the cash register would be like a fart Farmers Market calendar or if you have a little lemonade stand, right? I mean, we can talk about lemonade stand in a whole other episode. But it's still teaches kids, how do you come up with, you know, money? Where does it come from? How do you exchange goods for for those services or products. And so I think it's a really fun, fun way to introduce that. Now, I do want to talk about this, this this piece to it because it's, I think I think a lot of you can benefit from it. But how do you create a system for allowance for your child, I've been really researching this topic.

And I mentioned already that I had did a couple of other podcasts interviews. But I think starting with the simple simple system, and I'll link in the show notes as well for you a few of my resource favorite resources. Now Amazon has has these four plastic jars, they're like these little canning jars, they're plastic, and that's why I love them because we don't have to worry about them breaking that you can add you can attach labels, we only really need three but comes on pack of four, you can have spend, save in gifts, you have three jars that you can introduce to your child. And as as the idea of earning money starts to sink more in there really are getting them getting the actual money. And this is this is where you can try both I mentioned there's an online app and resource and you can actually have real tangible dollars in coins. They can have those in your in their room. And I will share the labels with you as well. That you can change you know like sometimes you can have them set around Christmas holidays or birthday or whatever theme like the ones I have are Spiderman Superheroes and then like Disney princesses, so whatever whatever theme you may like they're all out there. But I like this idea because it again it's like I see what Liam we're it's, it becomes like more of a habit. For him to, to check and see what's happening or like, we had to head out to the stores, like, can I bring my jars? You know, with me or my jar? Just one right? The one he wants to spend money on? And also teaching generosity? Like how do you start to introduce that concept? So we haven't we just we just like lightly touched on it. He's, he's still experimenting with setting them up. But I am kind of taken further on. It's like, okay, let's talk about how do you give something that you have, how do you, you know, allocate for the giving, and, and, and so forth. So figuring out what your system would be like whether he earns, he or she earns the money, or it's given to them now, and there, you have to go back and search for some for some episodes to talk about that loans. But one, one tip I have for you today, if you're don't want to have chores as part of your household. One easy way to kind of figure out how much allowance to give would be to look at the age of your child. And so like in the case of my son, he's four, okay, four and a half. So that's probably as much as I would give him every week. So if he gets $4, every week, now when he turns five, then I'll increase his allowance to $5. Now, I personally liked the idea of doing chores. So we kind of starting with that, but I don't know, we'll see. Maybe when he gets older, that could change for him somewhat. I mentioned things like involving your kids in going shopping, and you know, bringing them in on you know, on the journey with you. I know Liam actually loves to come with me because he gets to sit in a cart. And then so you know, he knows every pretty much everything we buy, because he sees what we grab from the shelves, he has his favorite items, what started to come up out of that, too, is like when we get home, he starts to help to unpack, you know, all the groceries and what goes in the fridge, what goes into, into the pantry, at the same time, like when we pay for the groceries, can I you know, he's asking if he can do the credit card. So like these practices are really good ways to start teaching these concepts. And the one tool that I think has all the power in the world is telling stories. So what kinds of stories or examples can you teach as you go through your day? Like I'm a big believer that that there should be a lot of transparency with families. I know it's hard to explain these concepts to younger kids. But think about as they get older. How would you want to have a conversation with with them. And so Yuri and I are very intentional about right now talking about our days and really like, I mean, as simple as having your kids understand what it is that you do to earn your money. Like Liam was just telling you everybody school that mommy just goes to the office, and that's her work. But I you know, I sat down with him one day and said, Do you know what I actually do? And why do I go to the office? Because he knows I have an office, he's come to my office, but how does the connection between what you do and the money that shows up in your bank account? Or, you know, in your wallet? How would that make your kids understand, you know, the overall theme, so I think it's probably the best way for you to have any impact onto these conversations. And I know for some of us, it may not be the way you were brought up, like my parents didn't talk about money, my parents were focused on making sure that we can survive in that's, that's amazing, right forever grateful for that. But these conversations in practices definitely can be different if you put all the intentions in the world so I am excited because I think this is just like the tip of the iceberg of what we can talk about how we can really put all of this together and it's like I see as like as a phase as as I personally go and you're kind of hanging out with me as we go through this phase and our kids grow more ideas will start to be introduced more resources will show up and I would love to hear from from you feedback on what are you using what what works for you. Maybe you've tried some of these things already. And if there's more stuff out there, please I'm all ears because I am really like it's if anything like my mission is to work with people and help them you know, at the very basic like, let's make sure you have your financial ducks in a row. But I feel like if we can make the most if we want to make the most impact. It is definitely impacting the younger generation and how and what they learn about money at the very early age. That's all my friends for today. Let's wrap it up. I hope that you found this useful shared with anyone you think it would be helpful and until next time. Remember, you are the bosses of your own money.