Teach Children to Save Day
As parents, we want the best for our children, and often that means teaching them skills and life lessons like how to save money. Today, on National Teach Your Children to Save Day (April 27), we wanted to discuss ways to do this, whether you have toddlers or teenagers.
- Start with a piggy bank. If you have little kids, a good old-fashioned piggy bank is the perfect place to start. Talk to them about how the piggy bank is for saving money and make a game out of finding coins to stuff in there.
- Open a bank account. If your child is a little older, or even once the piggy bank is full, you should consider taking them to bank with you to open a savings account. Involve them in counting the money being deposited and include them in on the final total. This is also a great time to talk about interest and what that is, and you can reinforce what interest is with each quarterly statement.
- Save for a specific item. If your child wants a big item, talk to them about saving up for this item. You can talk to your child about how much the item costs versus how much they earn in allowance each month (or babysitting, mowing lawns, etc.) and how long it will take, depending on how much of their money they save. This helps give kids a goal and something to work towards.
- Make things visual. In that same vein, making things visual for this savings goal can help children understand it. If you’ve determined that it will take 10 weeks of saving $5 each week, make a calendar to illustrate this. You could also have a picture of the item that your child can help to color in the more and more money they save. This gets them involved and gives them visual, concrete goals.
- Lead by example. One of the best things we can do for our children, both with money and many other aspects of our lives, is leading by example. If you’re telling your kids how important it is to save but spending your paycheck before you have it, your children will eventually pick up on this. Those mixed signals can be confusing and ultimately will probably undermine the lessons you’re trying to instill.
- Talk early and often about money and savings. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not taboo to talk about money, especially to your kids. Involve them in those conversations. Tell them if you’re stopping at the bank to make a deposit in your savings account and talk about how much and why. Talk to them at the grocery store about why you’re buying a certain product versus the other options on the shelves. These are things that even young children can be involved in, and it starts to build a healthy relationship with money early on.
If talking to your kids about savings makes you nervous, maybe because you struggle to save money yourself, you may be interested in our new round up savings feature in our digital banking suite. This feature allows you to round up the change from your purchases and automatically sets that aside in your savings account. This is an easy and manageable way to save, and it may the solution for you if you’re struggling with paying yourself first. Learn more by stopping in or calling your local branch today! Click here for contact information.