How to Teach Kids About Money with Beth Kobliner
Financial expert and best-selling author Beth Kobliner knows what she's doing when it comes to money and kids. So when she shared some of her most effective tips on how to raise financially savvy girls with us, we couldn't wait to share them with you.
While there certainly was a lot of ground to cover (allowance, bank accounts, and debit cards—oh my!), Beth's top three pieces of advice were too valuable to keep to ourselves
Teach Your Girl to Wait: Sometimes (actually, often!) we have to be patient and work for and save up for the things we want. But waiting is about so much more than waiting to buy things. Teaching her to be patient while waiting in a line, or even while mom and dad are on the phone, will help her understand delayed gratification and help her make smarter money decisions later in life. So in times when there's something she really wants, and it's not her birthday or another holiday when that toy or piece of clothing might be a gift, explain to her that she needs to save for it using her allowance. She might not be thrilled to hear that at first, but she'll feel pride in making that purchase herself, and will learn some seriously valuable lessons along the way.
Use Cash: With the frequent use of credit and debit cards kids are losing the opportunity to understand how money really works. Not only do they miss out on the chance to learn about denominations, how to count change, and how to estimate a purchase total, they might not understand that there’s a correlation between the swipe of a card and an exchange of money at all!
Talk to Your Kids About Money: Take the time to set parameters around what she can (and should!) use her allowance for, explain the process of setting up a bank account, and even get her involved in finding a bank with a good interest rate. Studies show that parents tend to talk to their boys about money far more often than they talk to their girls about financial matters, so make sure she's getting the information she needs to hold her own later on in life. The more you talk to her about dollars and cents from an early age, the more confidence she'll have with finances as she grows up.
Watch the video below to catch even more ways you can give your girl a financial edge in life:
