Financial action plan: include your children
Teaching children money skills and strategies can help to reassure them, keep them busy at home, and set them up for the future.
Teaching children money skills and strategies can help to reassure them, keep them busy at home, and set them up for the future.
With families still spending a lot of time at home, it’s a good opportunity to combine entertainment with learning. Here are 4 smart, fun ways to teach your kids healthy financial habits and attitudes.
Consider creating an at-home tuckshop, and turn lockdown life into a mini home economy! Your home tuckshop could include snacks and other treats like screen time. In exchange for completing chores and school work, children can earn play money (make your own from paper or borrow from board games) and can use these to buy items from the tuckshop. This will teach decision-making and saving skills and create incentives for good behaviour.
This fast-paced and fun mobile game let’s players master real-world money skills in a virtual world. The game allows players to choose a character and use money management tactics to help them reach their goals. Download and play the game for free.
Keep your grocery shopping receipts and let your kids use them to add up the cost of dinner each night of the week. This is a good maths exercise, and will teach them how to analyse a receipt and compare what different meals and items cost. You could also get your kids involved in planning the shopping list and see if they can price check ingredients in order to stick to a budget.
Talking to your kids about money and giving them opportunities to ask questions is a great way to share good principles and values. Here are some simple guidelines to help get the conversation going:
1. Talk values, not numbers
You don't need to share salary and expense details with your kids. Your kids don’t need numbers – they need to understand (and see examples of) behaviours and values like saving, budgeting, repaying debt.
2. Set and celebrate family goals
Let your kids be part of family money goal decisions, and discuss what sacrifices are required to reach them. If you’re repaying debt or saving for the future, let them celebrate milestones with you along the way.
3. Learn about money together
If your kids have money questions you don’t have the answers to, or if you’re learning more about a financial topic or product in your own life, draw your kids into the research process and spend time learning together.
