Spending time and effort to teach your kids the value of money, hard work, free fun and helping others will lead to effective way of introducing frugality into their lives, which will not only pay off financially in the future but will also be a great part of forming their personality. It’s natural that parents want to provide the best possible childhood to their kids, that is worry and hardship free, but encouraging them to be responsible with their own budget and letting them handle some work on their own plays a significant role in the process of healthy development.
Importance of Playtime
All children love toys, but it seems that they like the household items even more. In order to encourage frugality, allow your kids to play with different safe objects in your home, use some old clothes and accessories for role play, go outdoors to explore the nature, etc. This approach will boost the kids’ creativity while you’ll be successful in showing them that fun can be free and that they could have a great time even without a bunch of toys.
Let the Kids Earn
While giving some kind of allowance to your kids is perfectly fine, you can also encourage their desire to work in order to earn more money by giving them some tasks such as house chores that would get them additional money. With such an important reward, kids will get used to responsibility and the importance of working in order to get something in return. With this practice, you can explain them the way you earn money and the notion of having a job a lot easier.
Teach Them How to Deal With Money
With money they get as an allowance and reward for finished tasks kids can learn how to spend and save in early age. Parental guidance is very significant here. Children can spend all their money at once on things they don’t really need. In order to avoid this, talk to them about different ways they can save up and use their budget for the whole month. An interesting way to do so is to present them with some fun DIY piggy banks where they can store the money they can use instantly for candy and stuff like that and money they want to save in order to buy something they really want on their own.
Reusing and Re-purposing
Kids are like kittens who often find a lot more joy in the cardboard box the gift came in than the gift itself. Subconsciously, children want to be allowed to create their own toys and worlds. This is a perfect opportunity to teach frugality and use old clothes, boxes and trinkets to help them make something new. Also, teaching your kids how to sew can be really beneficial. Kids will really start to enjoy mending their own clothes, especially if they’re shown the various ways of decorating the clothes such as sewing the beads and pearls on or adding badges and patches.
Pretty Things Don’t Have to be Expensive
Apart from teaching the kids that clothes and shoes can and should be repaired and mended when possible instead of thrown away immediately, parents can also do their kids a favor by showing them the wonders of shopping for second hand clothes. They can easily get some comfy nice shoes or find low cost kids clothing and other garments that are not only top quality but inexpensive as well. With great online selection, they can do their shopping at home. Being trusted with such a task and responsibility of choosing their own clothes is very beneficial for kids.
Encourage Gratitude and Kindness
Start with big clear-out of the things you don’t need or use anymore and encourage the kids to do the same with their own stuff. Explain them how wonderful it is to free the space from things they no longer use and give all those stuff away to someone else who will enjoy them a lot more. This will not only encourage frugality regarding the clear difference between need and want, but will also make the kids kinder towards others and more meticulous in their organization.
If you want to successfully teach your kids to be frugal you have to set an example. It is not all about money talk and throwing numbers around. If you want children to understand the purpose of money and importance of saving you have to lead the way and act accordingly. Children do what children see and parents are their biggest role models.