Thrifty Ideas – Raising Frugal Kids
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Raising Frugal Kids
As frugal Moms and Dads, we often spend a ton of time focusing on raising our kids as frugally as possible, but do we teach them to be frugal themselves? How do you teach them to be frugal themselves? Is it too young to start?
In this post, I will be discussing ways to teach children as young as 3 how to be more frugal. Let’s raise the next generation to be frugal as well! I don’t know about you, but I WISH I was taught money management and frugal skills from a young age. Just thinking about all of the money I could have saved thru the years makes me cringe.
To help you get started, I have broken the tasks for teaching into age groups from toddler through teen, so you can see what you can start doing now to instill good budgeting values in your children.
Older Toddlers/Preschoolers: (Ages 3-4)
*Try teaching about money early on. Instead of giving them candy when they earn something, let them earn pennies to put in their piggy bank! My son LOVED putting money in his bank and so do most children. Play games that help with counting skills.
*When shopping, let them pull the blinkies from the coupon machines for you and help you put them in your binder, or even have a tiny little binder for them to keep their coupons!
*Teach them to appreciate and enjoy their creativity. This will allow them to grow up with an attitude to enjoy the simpler things and not be so materialistic in general
School Aged Kids: (5-10)
*This is a golden age to do a lot of teaching. Try having them help you with shopping tasks such as cutting out coupons, helping you make a list and even meal planning. One of our coupon friends Cathy H. taught her grandson to find and clip gum coupons so that he could get in on his own free gum deals! Very creative but effective to easily show a child how proper planning and coupons can help you buy the things you want!
*The grocery store is a perfect chance to find teachable moments. For instance, teach them to compare prices of two different brands and look at prices of fruits and vegetables in season.
*Teach them that they can’t “have it all” by allowing them to see how much things cost and making choices between things they want.
*Now is a perfect time to do an allowance. Encourage them to save some, donate some and spend some. This will play out on a small scale of how life for adults is for money management.
Pre-Teens/younger teens (Ages 11-15)
*School shopping is a perfect time to demonstrate money stretching. Tell the kids they have so many dollars to spend on necessary items like pants, shoes and shirts. Allow them to pick, but help guide them to make smart choices to get the most for their buck. Encourage them to spend allowance of their own on special things like accessories.
*This is a good age to get “first jobs”, aka those jobs we all had as kids such as babysitting (during day for short periods), lawn mowing, weeding and doing chores for neighbors.
When they earn it themselves, they will see how much work really is worth.
Teens (Ages 16-18)
*Many people want their kids to only focus on school work for these years, and will not encourage their teen to get a job. I think this is fine as long as you find other ways to teach them money management. One way is to have them help you write a budget, either for monthly expenses or for a special trip. Since we want to prepare our children for the “real world”, we also have to teach them realistic expectations on how far money really does stretch. By learning these things in a safe environment with your guidance it will be much easier to understand.
*If you plan on allowing and encouraging your teen to work part time, help them budget what they will be earning the same way you instilled in them with an allowance-save, spend, donate.
I think it is extremely important to not only find ways to save money while raising kids but also teach them the value of saving as well. One great idea with teens would be to have them make a list of the items that they want or enjoy from the grocery store. Keep this list and watch for sales, when a sale approaches, work with your teen to put together a simple couponing scenario that they can do themselves buying ONLY the items that are included on their list. They can shop with you, but have their own transaction. Going through the actual process of identifying the deal, clipping the coupons then participating in the transaction really makes it “click” and gives a much better understanding of how saving with coupons works.
If you have a technique or a suggestion on how to raise frugal children, we would love to hear about it! Hop over to our Facebook Chat page or Fan page and lets talk about it!!
