Teaching kids about money

Recently, I started giving Nachi (6) an allowance. I figured it was high time I started getting him used to the idea of handling money. The experts say that it's key in teaching them how to be fiscally responsible, but that the lessons should be taught over time. In other words: don't try to teach them saving and responisibility right away.. Give them a chance to absorb exactly how money works first.

I came across this post in Parent Hacks about using Chuck E. Cheese tokens to teach saving.

Game tokens are a bit easier to understand than actual money because he knows what a token is worth to him. It's a lot more concrete then saying you need 80 quarters to get Lego set X. So I told him I would give him 1 quarter and 1 token and when he earned all the tokens we would go to Chuck E. Cheese to use them. This worked out really well and I think it has helped him learn about saving towards a goal as he started to get excited as we got towards the end of the tokens.

The other thing I think it has helped with is that he doesn’t shortchange himself just because he has money to spend. So rather than giving up on the $20.00 Lego set to get $10.00 set RIGHT NOW, he has learned that he has to reach the goal to get the prize. Surprisingly he has never asked to go Chuck E. Cheese early.

It makes sense to me. I think my kids understand the 1 token = 1 ride equation better than what 1 dollar buys. I think I am going to give this a try for a bit. There happens to be a Chuck E. Cheese here in the Monsey area .. My kids love going there and it's really not much of a hassle. I would figure that the same can be done in Brooklyn with Funtime USA tokens and the like.

We will let you know how the pilot program goes.