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Great 'Teach kids to save money' Hunt

Former_MSE_Lee
Former_MSE_Lee Posts: 343 Forumite
edited 20 January 2011 at 6:36PM in Marriage, relationships & families
Great 'Teach kids to save money' Hunt

Whether they're at primary school, high school, or even university, teaching your children the value of a pound can be a challenge. So if you know any good ways of how to get the message across please post your ideas below.


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  • Pippad
    Pippad Posts: 91 Forumite
    My parents taught me the value of money by hard work. I was expected to do chores and have had a job (just a paper round to start with) since I was 13. I have taken a similar approach with my daughter (who is six nearly seven).

    Everytime she asks for something treat wise she has to explain what it is, what she would like it for and how much it costs. We can then work out a cost per wear if it is clothes, of per play, or per read etc and if we think it is good value. (Teaching math skills too!)

    She also has to buy her own Christmas gifts from the Mummy Christmas shop, to give at Christmas out of money that she has earned through the year. I of course do discount heavily the gifts from the Mummy Christmas shop as her rate of pay is anything from 2p to £1 depending on the chore or how well behaved she has been!

    The last thing that I have done that I can think of at the moment is to plan the shopping with her after having explained what our budget is. Very lucky about that as she has a good eye :rotfl: and spots things that are reduced quicker than her Daddy!
  • Well here's the thing..... You have to understand the psychology behind gaining our kids attention first. Then we the experienced consumers can deliver whatever message we want. Online consumer awareness courses, including financial awareness programmes at its core.

    It's very difficult to teach our young the value of a pound in today’s consumer society especially when companies can be so powerful and forceful in their marketing strategies. The lengths they’ll go to, to essentially steal and captivate our children’s attention! Our government and the banking cartel is still insistent on supporting and promoting this "Debt Based Crazy Consumer Fractional Reserve Banking System".

    In today’s inter-connected world... the only place our kids know better than us, trust and feel more at home is the myriad of social networking sites and online peer related review sites and forums such as this. But it seems to me to be very disjointed. We have to find a way to pull it all together. A one stop shop for baby consumers to visit BEFORE they get hooked into the debt based consumer trap that the government and banks so desperately want. We need a way to pull together or to create a platform for ALL consumers to join, gather, share, coordinate intelligence and grade any size business providing goods and services on whatever values consumers see as important to them. We need a platform similar to facebook but for consumers.

    Consumer Friends? :A :T

    Consumer Rebels? :mad: (The more experienced militant group or special forces teams depending on how you look at it)

    As Kennedy famously said in his Congressional Statement….


    "Consumers by definition, includes us all. They are the largest economic group affecting and affected by almost every public & private economic decision, yet they are the only important group whose views are often not heard or worse ignored.” :mad:

    This is a mighty global problem that must be and can be solved! :rotfl:


    A database developed and controlled by consumers for consumers no matter what age group or country. :beer:

    So who could we be?


    A Global Consumer Intelligence Network (GCIN) that allows you the consumer to gather and share vital intelligence both positive and negative on any size business or individual that provides goods and services across whatever values you deem to be important.


    Why would we be here and who would be here for?


    Trust is now the new money. Some businesses sadly ignore this vital ingredient and worse some consumers give it blindly. With a staggering three billion people set to go online, consumers and businesses buy, sell, trade and exchange with each other sometimes directly with limited government, middlemen or arbiters between them and will do so, most of them, without ever coming face-to-face. Three billion strangers operating on one thing: trust.


    There are two sides to that coin. Businesses must be trustworthy! In fact businesses that are the most trusted source in their chosen industry or segment should thrive, those that aren’t should dive.


    Without question a major hallmark of the future as happened in the past will be a battle for consumer attention, with the winner going to those businesses whom, the consumer trusts. (Consumer Friends through intelligence gathering, sharing and recommendations aims to be the much needed antidote to all that clever media marketing, subliminal tricks, sometimes slick, sometimes force-full sales men and woman, celebrity driven products designed to gain your trust and more importantly your money!)


    Our research shows your purchasing decisions are based on different values, an obvious one being price, but crucially, there are other key performance values you hold to be important. Whether that is the quality of the product or service, moral considerations, geographical location, the quality of the aftercare or ongoing customer service, environmental concerns or carbon footprint, charity related work, or simply other network consumer friend’s experience. The list is endless. Clearly the business you find to buy, or finds you to sell, any product or service, may sound like the perfect proposition, but please bear in mind one important fact. You must always remember profit is the number one strategic objective of any commercial enterprise regardless of what goods and services they offer or how good they make you think you feel.


    Throughout the last century the interaction between business and consumers has mostly been one sided with industries spending unimaginable amounts of time and money on clever psychological marketing both direct and indirect designed to get one thing, YOUR MONEY! As much of it, as quickly and for as long as possible!


    Network Culture is revolutionising consumer power and once again with your help, new and seasoned consumers alike will definitely be King!

    Just some thoughts :j:rotfl::T :beer:
  • LooniesMum
    LooniesMum Posts: 94
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    edited 8 October 2010 at 11:54AM
    We have 5 and 7 year old boys. About a year ago we found the sticker reward system (full sticker chart = prize) just wasn't motivating them anymore. I gave each of them a jar with their name on instead, in which they could collect pennies. Pennies are gained for good behavior and lost for bad behavior. Regular pennies are earned for completing homework or little jobs around the house. Surprise pennies are earned when we feel they deserve a reward, e.g. being helpful without being asked. About once a week they can visit "Mummy's shop" with their pennies. The shop has small treats in it and occasionally small toys. Toys cost more than treats, so they may choose to limit spending on sweets or chocolate in order to save up for a toy (e.g I got a load of second hand Go-gos from Ebay and packaged them in 3s for 50p !). Initially just a reward system, we found it helped advance their counting skills, allowed us to demonstrate "getting change" and also the concept of saving up. We've been doing this for nearly a year and it still works just as well as at the beginning.

    One day when our youngest cried out "Mummy, can't you make the things in your shop less money?!" we knew there was a valuable lesson being taught! Now he accepts he has to wait longer if he doesn't have enough money. Though to keep them motivated I always have a few things that they can afford!

    They both also like looking through toy catalogues, and that helps motivate them to save up for longer if they've been given money for birthdays.

    Oh - and during the summer we showed them how much ice creams cost from the ice cream man vs how much they cost in the supermarket. I bought some nice ones for my "shop" and they were allowed to buy one from me after tea (not every day!). That helped reduce the frequent requests for ice creams when we were out!:)
  • dawyldthing
    dawyldthing Posts: 3,438 Forumite
    I would say be honest with your kids from the start. I know when my mum and my ex step dad broke up it meant mum was a single parent and we could only afford some things, cheap days out and had to be careful with money. The first Christmas mum spent a lot on Christmas presents (i think it took her mind off the divorce). But it took 3 years to pay all the catalogues, loan people and the other loan she had, so for that 3 years mum shared it all with me and we came up with a budget and I realised that there never is an endless pot, but you can spend what you do have wisely and it can go far. This has given me many invaluable lessons, many principles I still follow now including the 5 years of uni and ever since I have worked since being 13. Hard work has never done me any harm, its built up my skills and made me many friends along the way, and I think its important that the same principle are shown to all children and adults as it may mean that as a society it will help many of the problems be sorted as we are made to be social beings and working is part of it as most of the time we work as part of a team.

    Also, when taking kids shopping, let them see what things cost, go around with a calculator and see which is more better value per 100g etc, as although things may be 'a special offer' it may not be as the other one that is normal price may be cheaper per 100g.
    :T:T :beer: :beer::beer::beer: to the lil one :) :beer::beer::beer:
  • My son's infant school has a book saving club. Once a week they can take in their money, that amount goes into a savings book and they save until they get enough for the book they want.

    The books are brought by the school from the Book People so the children (and parents) can save a lot of money as lots of books are sold individually from the packs. The books start at 75p.

    This teaches them about of saving towards something they'd like and the value of money.
  • Soozzy74 wrote: »
    My son's infant school has a book saving club. Once a week they can take in their money, that amount goes into a savings book and they save until they get enough for the book they want.

    The books are brought by the school from the Book People so the children (and parents) can save a lot of money as lots of books are sold individually from the packs. The books start at 75p.

    This teaches them about of saving towards something they'd like and the value of money.

    I buy from the school book clubs too - but sometimes the books we want are cheaper on Amazon!
  • elliep_2
    elliep_2 Posts: 711
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    edited 8 October 2010 at 11:55AM
    My Mum taught me by giving me pocket money (it started at 20p per week) and letting me earn more by doing jobs. She paid for things I needed like school uniform, and things she didn't want me to give up for financial reasons (like sports clubs) but other things were down to me. If I wanted a toy then I paid for it, but if it was a big expensive one then we would come up with a savings plan, e.g. if I saved £10 then Mum would put in the other £5.

    Very often I'd start to save for something then realise that atually it wasn't worth the price so I'd choose something cheaper, usually similar but without a brand name! Even now I'm not bothered by brand names anymore.

    I think that this method really helped me to learn to save to buy the things I want, and to really consider purchases while I save. I had a friend whose Mum thought she was doing the same as my Mum but the crutial difference was that she would buy the toy now and agree 'credit terms' with her daughter so she wouldn't get any pocket money or chores money until it was paid off. Guess what, my friend still makes impulse purchases that she can't afford on a credit card that she struggles to pay back!
  • ailuro2
    ailuro2 Posts: 7,535
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    We have paid DD her pocket money via online banking since she was old enough to earn pocket money - that way she learns that most money these days is never actually "seen" or "felt" by the person who owns the money, and that it will disappear electronically very easily when you use it to pay for something

    ( we pay for what she wants then she pays us back online direct into our account)

    She gets a clothes allowance too, and now understands if she spends it all on clothes for the holidays there won't be much left to spend on accessories later on...;) or anything left to buy something new for the school disco, so she has to choose wisely to get things that will be suitable for more than one occasion.

    I know this makes us sound a bit harsh, she did overspend a bit in the summer and had very little money left for school uniform, so I bought that for her... normally she's very good and has plenty of money but this year we were cruising on hols so she needed some posh frocks which dented her busget a bit ( even though they came from TK MAxx:))
    Member of the first Mortgage Free in 3 challenge, no.19
    Balance 19th April '07 = minus £27,640
    Balance 1st November '09 = mortgage paid off with £1903 left over. Title deeds are now ours.
  • Vaila
    Vaila Posts: 6,301 Forumite
    i had a different upbringing, i was just expected to do chores etc because they needed to be done, without a reward, i mean even for passing exams some of my friends were given cah insentives i find it wrong, example you should make your bed because it needs to be done, you need to keep a tidy house not because someone is going to give you pocket money for it ! rant over :) i never really got a set allowance till i went to secondary (£10) a week which i saved , and spent on stuff other than the basics
  • I give my children a reasonable amount of pocket money and expect them to use this for most of their regular spending such as topping up the mobile phone, going out with friends, console games and any clothes that i feel they don't need. I would not give them extra if they ran out. Initially there was a lot of waste, but after a while they learned that once the money was gone it was really gone and they both learned not only to prioritise their spending, but also to budget themselves and to save money for things they really wanted.
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