Teach Your Children How To Budget


by Jesse Whitehead - Date: 2010-10-06 - Word Count: 367 Share This!

With the state of the global economy right now, it is more important than ever to teach your children how to budget. Many parents do not realize that children are very open to learning how to use money correctly. The most influential people in most children's lives are their parents, and it is a parent's responsibility to teach their children how to handle money responsibly.
Perhaps the most important thing you can do to teach a child how to budget is to model good budgeting practices for them. That means that they should not see you wasting money on frivolous or unnecessary items. Instead, your children should see and hear you talking about your monthly budget in a positive way. You should talk to them about how much extra money the family might have or will need to save for fun things like vacations. Be open and honest about your budget, and even include your children in family discussions about the state of the family finances.
For instance, you may want to show your children what monthly bills look like. You could try to involve them in paying your monthly bills. Show them how you write checks, and demonstrate how you pay bills online. Show them how you set aside a certain amount of money each month to cover all of your monthly expenses.
Another great thing to do is to teach them the value of money. It's OK and even advisable to tell your child that there are times when they will need to choose between two or more things. Give them a basic economics lesson on supply and demand. Explain that resources are limited in any system - including the family finances - and they must make choices, but they can't have everything they want all of the time.
Too many parents do not explain to their children the realistic limitations of finances. It's important to teach them at an early age that there are financial obligations that they must be met when they get older. If you teach them while they are young, they will know how to make sound financial decisions, and be less likely to make mistakes that will jeopardize their ability to achieve financial success as adults.

Related Tags: money, finances, children, budgeting

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