Your Child Can Be A Money Whiz

It’s summer time. The kids are out swimming in the pool and enjoying the long summer nights. It is also the perfect time to teach your kids about money. Polls show that parents feel more at ease discussing sex or drugs than money. Why? Many adults don’t think they know enough about managing money themselves. Yet research shows that parents are the number one influence on a child’s money making decisions. If you don’t know where to start try these four easy ways to help children learn financial facts.

1. Pay it forward – Find a charity your child is passionate about. Match their donations to the charity.
2. Butterfly effect – Delayed gratification. Watching a caterpillar grow into a butterfly can take a lifetime for a child. Set up a butterfly hatchery. Along the way, your child can carry out simple tasks to earn a dollar and watch how her/his savings grows to be able to buy something better in the future.
3. Easy as ice cream – Go to the store with your child and have them write down all the prices to ingredients for ice cream to make at home. Now, the challenge. Can he or she make the same treat for less then buying a carton of ice cream from the store?
4. Very Interesting – Compounding interest is a cornerstone of personal finance. Start each day by giving your child a penny. Each day after, pay him/ her interest equaling the amount he/ she already has. Stop on day 11, unless you’re willing to part with serious cash. By then, that penny will have grown to $10.24 – all thanks to compounding interesting.

Have a fun money summer!