Are you Depriving Your Kids if You Don’t Succumb To Their Whims?

Shopping has been a “coping mechanism”. This has become a tagline for my eldest daughter, particularly during this pandemic. She would always allot a portion of her allowance and income for the monthly shopee sales…. 6.6; 7.7. The question would always be, how do you teach your kid’s how to manage their money?

Here are 3 tips for teaching kids about money management:

1. Be a role model, modeling entails, sharing with them, what you do with your income, what you prioritize, define necessary and unnecessary? This lockdown was an eye opener, and a blessing, I would say. I am able to interact and share insights with my daughter. I shared with her that my bonus was recently allotted to buy life insurance. With wide eyes, she told me, what?!?

Whoever allots bonuses for insurance? Why not go shopping with it? Here I explained, “ I have your best interest in mind, I seek to ensure that should something happen to me, I will not be burden to you,” and she understood.

For my little girls, I also train them by asking them simple questions like, if you already have a pair of shoes and it is still in good condition, do we need to buy a new one? And they would reply with, “no Mommy, I already have one.”

2. Don’t always give them money especially for unnecessary things , you will have your chance to explain to them the importance of reflecting before buying anything. This will also give them a clearer picture as to the value of what is being spent and help them be creative at trying to earn their own money or recycling and creating new items from the old, if they really fancy changing something.

Before buying anything, I would ask myself the following questions,

a. My necessary question – Is this essential? Am I going to die if I do not buy this?

b. My happiness question – If I were to buy this item, will it make me happy for longer than a few days? Otherwise, that would count as a non-essential.

3. Open a bank account or an investment account for them, deposit the monetary gifts that is given them. This is a way of showing them that you respect that this. Money is for them and you are ensuring that you will grow this money for their future. Show them how much they’ve already set aside and encourage them to keep on adding to it from their allowance and from their salaries when they start to work.

Money management is discipline, discipline starts at home. The skills you teach them now will enable them to be successful in the future. Agree?