Friday Musings: Teaching Children About Money
April is apparently Financial Literacy Awareness Month. Who knew?
There are many facets to a discussion of financial literacy and how it impacts our society, but for today I want to focus on how we teach our children about money.
My 1-year-old son is too young to learn about money, but in just a few years he’ll be ready. I’ve done a little bit of reading on the topic, and I quickly heard about the value of an allowance with forced budget categories like spending, saving and giving. A good start for sure and something I will very likely incorporate myself.
But to be honest, I’ve really only scratched the surface of thinking here and don’t have much in the way of original thoughts to share.
However, Justin at The Frugal Path wrote an article on this topic the other day that really hit home for me. What’s particularly impressive to me is that he doesn’t currently have children, and yet he’s given the topic some real thought. Several of his ideas are clearly personal and are not ideas I have seen elsewhere.
I’m linking to his article today because it was helpful for me and I thought it might be helpful for you as well. I’ve bookmarked it as something to look back at when my wife and I are making our own decisions on teaching money to our children.
You can find the article here: Financial Literacy: Teach Your Children With Actions
Let me know what you think. Enjoy!
Matt, thanks for the mention. My thoughts on money and my future children comes from the mistakes that occurred because of a lack of knowledge or misunderstanding of what was said.
I’m glad it helped. Have a great weekend.
How we learn from our experiences is a huge part of what makes us who we are. Sounds like you’re making positive moves on that front.
Heh, when I first read your headline, I thought it said “teaching children about Monday”!
Haha, now THAT could be an interesting post. I’m pretty sure there would have to be an Office Space reference in there somewhere.