What are we Teaching Kids about Money?

What are we teaching kids about money these days? In so many instances, we reward fits, we cater to demands for higher allowances, we let them hang ten in the shower for forty minutes, and we send them off into the world of credit card applications by the time they reach their eighteenth birthday without any grand concept of how to save, what things cost, and why money is such a high priced commodity. Many of us had to learn our money lessons on the fly, and so we really don't have a clue ourselves what we should be teaching kids about money.

Many kids under the age of 12 believe that a thirty thousand dollar per year salary is a lot of money. And at one point it was. But these days, it is almost impossible for a family of two to live comfortably off of thirty thousand dollars per year. Energy costs alone have not kept up with the average salary and thus you can't expect an average salary to cover even basic expenses any longer. And just how do we teach this concept to kids without scaring the daylights out of them?

Teaching kids about money starts young. The general principles like earning money through a chore system and saving money in order to make purchases is pretty basic. If they want it bad enough, they can learn to save their money and then choose how to spend it. However, later in life, when choices regarding education, grades, and where they put their time and effort still requires monetary conceptualization that many kids are tottering off into the world without. One really great lesson is to show kids, through daily exercise, just how far money doesn't stretch. Giving them a month long project where school becomes a paid job but yet they have to attend to all of the household bills, including food, extras, and even the car and car insurance gives them a more complete picture of what minimum wage jobs might offer them in the future.

Starting a savings plan or an investment plan with them is also a good way to help encourage kids to understand that as they develop money, they have options regarding what to do with that money. Some kids need to have a savings plan mapped out for them and other kids will run with it, but what is really important is that they learn what interest can do for even a small amount of money put aside on a regular basis. In a world where many people aren't saving, this is a necessity that we need to start teaching in our homes. Teaching kids about money doesn't have to be scary or overtly complex provided that it reflects real life scenarios and real world understanding to release them into the world well prepared as young adults.