Financial Stewardship for Kids: A Life Skill Every Homeschool Family Should Teach

One of the most beneficial homeschool life skills is financial stewardship for kids, which includes early money management, personal finance, and budgeting. These skills will go with your children into the future and set them up for success in the real world. They will have homes and families of their own someday, and these skills will prove to be invaluable.

We have had several children successfully go through college with no debt following them. Applying for scholarships along with working several jobs revealed the value of money and the freedom of being debt free. It takes hard work on the front end to earn and save, but the back end result will be freedom from debt. Going into life with a huge debt is a heavy weight to bear for many years, so teaching the value of saving money and finding creative ways to finance their priorities are very important life skills to start teaching while they are still under our roof. Even young children can learn to be industrious, money-smart, and entrepreneurial. There are so many other benefits included in money management besides the actual cash flow. Creating spending, saving, and giving plans are vital in the elementary years.

The academics involved in learning financial literacy would be the application of mathematics, accounting skills, and greater reasoning.  Karen Warfle suggests, “Financial literacy could be considered a culmination of understanding various math and language concepts and applying them in daily life to earn money, make purchases, save for the future, or donate to charity. Hands-on activities lend interest and provide real-world experience to enhance learning.“

Of course, we can’t forget what else we do with God’s resources: giving and tithing. Whether we are saving or spending or giving, we must have clear priorities. To love money too much may look like either stinginess (not just frugality, but overly money-conscious or tight-fisted with God’s resources). When saving money, we can become money-hoarders or too self-sufficient and not God-dependent. When spending, we must reign in our wants so that our expenses can cover our needs. So either side of the spectrum has its pitfalls. But when we take a God-centered view of His provision, we can be generous as He leads us. Starting with tithing and moving to other giving increases their capacity for generosity. Matthew 6:24–33 is a good foundational passage:

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?  (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Because we have a Master over our needs, we have no need to worry. The same God Who oversees nature and all its complexity, oversees us. He asks us to seek and tend to His Kingdom first (even with our finances), and He promises to take care of our physical needs as “all these things shall be added unto you.” Our God owns all things, and allows us to be stewards of some of His resources. May we be good stewards of what He provides, and may we teach our children the same.

Frequently Asked Questions About Financial Stewardship for Kids