kids and money

The Allowance Debate

It is our responsibility as parents to teach our kids the life skills they’ll need to thrive as adults. Some of the most important skills we can teach them relate to making smart money decisions. One topic that often provokes strong opinions relates to allowance: how much to give, whether to tie it to chores and what it should cover. [...]

How to Make Summer Really Count

With summer vacation around the corner, you might be wondering how you will keep your kids occupied all summer and not hear, “I’m bored”, constantly. While figuring out what to do on their own has its own benefits, if you’d like to offer them some helpful ideas, here are a few activities that can help them learn something useful, too. [...]

It’s Time to Get Serious About Financial Literacy

April is financial literacy month. Financial literacy is an understanding of money – how to make it, how to manage it, how to invest it, and how to give back. Understanding money and how it works has never been more important. The collective debt burden of United States citizens is $11.5 trillion dollars. This is 75% of US GDP. Only [...]

What Lemonade Stands Can Teach Your Kids about Money

Now that most kids are out of school, parents might start hearing the dreaded “I’m bored” if their kids aren’t in camps all summer. The next time you hear that phrase, instead of just telling them to go outside and play, encourage them to start a lemonade stand and use the opportunity to teach them some useful personal finance and [...]

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

With the holidays upon us, my thoughts have turned to gift giving. My kids are already preparing their lists for Santa. While it can be tempting to fulfill their every request, have you ever noticed how quickly they become bored with the toys and games you buy them? How about giving them a gift with longer-term [...]

Teach Your Kids to Be Savvy Back-to-School Shoppers

One of the best teachable moments to teach your kids good financial skills is through the back-to-school shopping process. Before your inbox gets cluttered with advertisements or your kids start seeing ads on TV or the internet, come up with a plan to involve them in the process and make smarter shoppers of them. […]

Raising Generous Children

One of my favorite topics is teaching kids about money. Related to that topic, and particularly relevant with the holidays approaching, is how to teach kids to be generous to others and their community. […]

How to Structure Allowance for Your Kids

I recently responded to a post on my local mothers’ club blog on the topic of allowance and decided others might have similar questions. The original post was from a mom of a 7-year old who wanted to start an allowance, but was uncertain of the parameters to put on it. […]

Where Should I Put My Child’s Savings?

A friend of mine recently asked me about what type of account to put her kids’ savings into. I thought others might be interested in the topic, too. There are a variety of different types of accounts available with different levels of parental control and implications on college financial aid […]