Teaching Young Kids to Manage Money

“Money does not grow on trees.” My mom never actually used this statement on us kids as my siblings and I are naturally frugal. The only time I had that jealous feeling from being given hand-me-downs was when I was a high school freshman. Since my older sister was, well, the oldest, my brother and I always got her secondhand school books. 

I guess I had it (?) when I stepped foot into high school. I thought, “Why do I always get old books, not even new workbooks?” I had to erase the answers so I can reuse them! So I boldly told my mom, “Mama, I want and need a new math book please.” Mama did not argue, and I got the new math book. It did not feel good at all. Did a crisp, new math book make me study harder? Umm, no. I just felt really bad for demanding something which I should not be even thinking I am entitled to. It was a lesson on contentment and frugality with Mama not even saying a word or raising a finger. 

Natural Teachable Moments

Becoming a mom can make you realize (magically??) why imparting frugality to your children is one of the greatest things you can do. Suddenly, everything has dollar signs attached to them. Or in my case, peso signs. But as I pondered about my own kid, I also realized that this came naturally in our little family. My child is not one to whine about new toys and gifts. (But maybe if he asks for new books, I might give in.) Here is how we did it. 

1. 1. When talking to my son, I associate the idea of me working with money. Like “Mama has to work so we can have money to buy books and stuff.” (Yeah…I always use “books” because we love books.) 
   2. One of the good outcomes of saying the above statement is that Mama-time has become a currency. Like “Mama, we don’t need new stuff” (teaching contentment here). He has become aware that me working is necessary so we can have money to buy stuff. But it also means that it is Mama-time away from us doing things together. 
   3. When I talk to him about taking care of his belongings, I mention “because they cost money and Daddy and Mama worked hard for those.” 
   4. We show our child that things cost money. For example, “Ooh, this is quite expensive.” And he would answer, “How expensive? $100?? $1,000??” He tends to exaggerate, but he has grasped the connection that expensive means a lot of money, which is something we have to earn. 
   5. Sometimes when I fix my wallet or get cash, he looks at what I am doing, and I explain that these are bills and coins for buying things. They are valuable—we cannot play with them or just leave them wherever they are, like toys or paper. 
   6. When he was younger, we would play shop. He has this cash register for keeping money. And I would buy trinkets in his shop like strawberries, lipstick, toy cars, etc. He would then tell me, “That would be $4!” Play is a wonderful and simple opportunity to introduce money to children. 
   7. One of the easiest (or hardest) things a parent can do is to lead by example. If my child always sees me using plastic all the time, he might think all he needs is a credit card to survive in this world. When we go out, we rarely have big shopping trips (fighting the wants here). Probably the biggest splurge I did was for his curriculum this year, and that is because it was really A LOT of books.

 Avoiding Comparison

In a way, homeschooling helped in shielding him from peer comparison. I remember when I was a young girl, the other kids in the class would have the double-decker pencil boxes that can be opened with a push of a button. It was very “in” at that time, and I really wanted to have one. But I guess the frugality of my parents rubbed on me so I did not ask Mama any more about it. 

Right now, I would not want my child to be wanting stuff just because he sees other kids having it. So this is one of the wonderful aspects of keeping him home. He learns contentment. He may be too young to learn how to handle money. But he is mindful of the relationship between work-money-time—which he certainly needs to know when he takes charge of his finances in the future. 

Written by Katherine Tanyu

Aside from God, her family, homeschooling (and books!), Katherine's love lies in stationeries. She and her husband manage growing stationery brands ForestmillⓇ, PrevailedⓇ and Boss StationeryTM in the Philippines. She is also the community moderator of a Facebook group for Office and School Supplies Wholesalers. Katherine blogs at https://kmtanyu.wixsite.com/thiskatwrites.

See articles on The Canadian Schoolhouse written by Katherine.