When it comes to money and personal finances, everyone seems to have a few rules they try to stick by and impart on their offspring. While my father like to tell me he wasn’t made of money, he also liked to discuss savings and the good and bad of credit cards. We recently asked our Field Agents, “what is one piece of financial advice you’re trying to teach your children?” and we got some really great answers. Adults could even benefit from some of these golden nuggets of financial wisdom.
9 Great Things Field Agents Are Trying to Teach Their Kids About Money:
1. “To save up money for big things you really want. We try and teach them not to spend money on everything they see but to walk away and really think about it. They can always go back if they’ve decided they really want to use their spending money on that item.”
2. “You should always tithe 10-percent of your earnings to the Lord. After that, separate what you want to save for future purchases and then keep the remaining in your checking account. Do not spend more than what you have or you will end up being in debt.”
3. “I try to teach my children to think about what they are wanting to purchase. Is it something they really want or will they just use it for a short time and not want it anymore. Also, we look at prices. If it is something that they decide to buy, where is the best price for the same item? We check in-store and online.”
4. “I want my children to understand the value of money and that you can’t just get everything you want with no work. I have my 4-year-old daughter do simple chores around the house and reward her for those chores. She has the ability to buy things with her chore money that she wants, such as toys and clothes. It would be easy for me to buy that small toy, but I want her to know what it’s like to earn the money and decide how she wants to spend that money, plus learn what it is like to know when you can’t afford something and work towards that.”
5. “We are trying to teach them that what you make is not what you bring home. We require them to pay a percentage of allowance to tithes as well as “rent”. The “rent” payments are out in their savings for when they are older (they are not aware).”
6. “I am trying to teach my children the value of hard work and saving a portion of everything they earn. Whenever they earn money I give them the option of how they would like to spend that money, be it saving, spending or investing. I have taught them the basics of stocks, principles for saving and what you can do with it and tried to show them that no amount of purchasing will make them happy.”
7. “I’m am trying to teach my children to invest in the stock market and make smart decisions on what to invest in. To get them more interested and see how their investments can grow I do make small investments for my kids in the stocks they tell me about and give me good reasons why they believe it is a good investment.”
8. “I’d love to teach my children to save more. It gets so hard as you get older, no matter how much money you make. Getting into good saving habits young is so important.”
9. “I want them to understand credit. I want them to know they shouldn’t frivolously charge things, if they do not intend to pay it as soon as possible in cash, otherwise, they can incur high interest and high debt.”
One thing that I do with my son in order to teach him to be thrifty is whenever I get a digital coupon on my phone for $1 worth of gas free, I take him and the coupon and go to as many of those brand of gas station we can find and put in $1 worth of gas at each station. At first he thought it was silly to only put in $1 worth of gas but I explained it to him like this… if you saw a dollar bill lying on the ground would you pick it up or walk past it? Of course he said he would pick it up. So I told him that the coupon which is allowed to be used multiple times by the way, is basically a free dollar and so to drive past that gas station and not stop and pick up that free dollar would be kind of silly. now he looks forward to the coupons that I get once a month so that we can go out on our dollar hunting trip.