Mamabee

How to Encourage Your Kids to Start Saving Early

When it comes to parenting, a crucial lesson that kids need to learn is the importance of saving – a life skill that they will keep with them for the rest of their life. Financial responsibility and budget management are habits that, if you introduce your kids to at an early age, will be enjoyable and useful to both you and them. Your children will not only understand and appreciate the value of things around them, but they will also maintain habits of self-control, patience, and responsibility into adulthood.

 Using Apps to Encourage Goal Setting

Using a chore, allowance or family finance app can have a huge number of potential benefits. The encouragement and reinforcement provided by an app like Homey can encourage your children to save while also getting their chores done on time – many apps such as this let you view the family’s progress on tasks, which can turn saving and staying on top of chores into a fun and competitive game. Not only do your kids get taught to pay themselves and earn their money, but you get to manage chores and can make allowance payments right from the app.

Teach Your Children Financial Basics

There are a number of habits you can pass on to your kids to make the saving process consistent and rewarding. The most obvious one might be to help your children find a reason to save. Whether it is a particular toy, game, or other item that they might want, helping them to make this decision will motivate them to stick to their plan. In doing this, creating a consistent saving schedule (daily, weekly or monthly) will ensure that they achieve their goal.

Another possible habit to teach your kids would be to save a percentage of any money they earn or are gifted. Saving a specific, consistent portion of their earnings will become a habit that lasts them a lifetime.

To round up this section, make sure that you provide regular reinforcement to your children. Going over their savings and talking about their progress will ensure that they keep these habits in the front of their mind while they are still learning. A good way for children to visualise their goals is to put up a savings chart that will give them consistent physical reminders of their progress.

Open a Savings Account

You might think that your child is too young for a savings account – before you come to any conclusions, be sure to have a look at the kids and teens savings account options available. When you think that your child is ready for the responsibility of a bank account (either in their own name, or held in a trust for them), providing them with this access can give them a great understanding of how bank accounts work. Not to mention, this will be an exciting and encouraging step for your child, where they will be able to view their savings, set personalised savings goals, and receive payments themselves.

For more information, check out the great kids and teens savings account options at Westpac – with no transaction or monthly fees included in their bump savings account.

Starting to Save Early

If you are unsure of when you want to introduce your children to the basics of financial management, studies have shown that introducing concepts such as pocket money to children at a young age can help them to develop a more positive approach to managing their finances. Furthermore, this positive approach is more prominent if chores or tasks have been included in earning this money. 

By following this advice, your kids will gain financial skills and responsibility that they will keep with them as they go through adulthood. Besides this, using apps and introducing your children to savings accounts will make your life easier, as you will be able to supervise them in setting goals, completing chores, and earning their allowance.

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.