Teaching Kids About Money: Frugality is a Learned Practice

Around our house, if you ask my kids what we do with money, you'll get a standard response from my four and 6 year olds.  "You spend some, save some and give some away to people that don't have enough to buy food."  Recently, I read something that suggested adding a fourth category for investing.  That is great idea as well.

Getting started early and having honest discussions often are great ways to prepare your kids for a stable financial future.  Granted, my kids are still little, so I haven't been successful yet.  However, my parents were very forth coming with myself and my sisters about the management of finances.

Kate and I are not experts in the realm of money.  Kate's degree is in marketing and I test blood and body fluids as my second job (mom first).  So, any information we are sharing is just what we have learned (by trial and error) ourselves or we have researched.  When it comes to teaching your family, it is up to you to determine what's best for each of you. 

I think the concept of frugality has been diluted since the days of the Great Depression.  Our Grandma (the farmer's mom) was a product of this and our dad passed this on to us.  When you raise 11 kids on a farming income, not ever knowing what next season will bring, you definitely rely on faith and using everything to it's fullest potential. 

However, it is my thought that many who were children of those who lived through the depression did not want to 'deprive' their kids, so this culture of materialism and 'keeping up' was fostered.  In comes the credit card, combined with parental guilt and now you have a generation that doesn't know how to say no to anything. 

This isn't anybody's fault.  It just means that many in our generation simply haven't had frugality instilled in them.  Kudos to you that are trying to teach yourself.  Kate and I just lucked into it!  In fact, we learn new things daily, too. We hope we can help others learn, because this way of life isn't going away. 

This week I am going to talk about different ways to teach your kids about money.  Most of what I say will be based on web research and some of it is things we are doing or were taught.  As always, we love comments, good or constructive criticism.