Friday, November 18, 2011

Strategies to Teach your Kids about Utilizing Kids Allowance Efficiently

By Tisha Alvarado


Children can learn how to budget money with allowance for kids. The only real way to learn how to handle money is through personal experience. Parents can spend time going over what finances are and why saving is important, but without hands on experience kids will not retain the information.

Knowing how to save money and being responsible with what is spent is a lesson many do not learn until well into adulthood. This is learned from being thrown into the fire of life by their parents and told now it is their turn to take care of their financial needs. Of course this leads to lots of calls for help until they get it.

Once a child is asking for money and shows an interest in spending their own money, it is time to consider giving them an allowance. The amount given can be determined by figuring out how much is issued to them for all the things they ask for each week. Another way to determine the amount is to match their age, a dollar per year.

Chores are done as a part of daily responsibilities in any household. Allowance and chores should be exclusive of each other. Children will want to know how much they get for vacuuming and how much for cleaning their room. Based on these answers they will want to pick and choose what they are willing to do. This means two lessons not learned.

There will need to be an agreement made about what their allowance is spent on. The idea is to minimize what it is they are asking their parents for and to learn to budget what they have. Make sure what they receive is enough to cover their purchases. As direction for managing what they have, go over saving money, spending money and sharing money. Be an example with this concept. They should spend on their agreed upon items, save for those that cost more and sharing through giving.

Allowance for kids is a great way to learn money management from a young age. Do not wait until they are teenagers to start instilling these habits. There are lots of adults that did not begin to learn until they were on their own and that is simply too late.




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