Last month Tia asked me to give the Tip of the Day over on the Company Porch. It was a lot of fun, although challenging to come up with tips that might be a new idea to someone. One of the tips that seemed to bless a few people was on budgets for your children, so I decided to share it here. I may share a few others along the way, too.
Tip of the Day ~ Budgets for Children
11:07 AM, Sep. 8, 2006
Teach your children early the
importance of spending on a budget. First and most important, when our
children are very young and they earn money, we teach them to set aside
their tithe. They know that even if they earn a dime helping out, they
take a penny or more from their regular bank and put it in their
"giving bank". The next step is teaching them to put money aside for
savings.
As your child grows, give him more
responsibility with his money, and teach him how to use it wisely. You
want to gradually build up to your teen being able to keep a budget.
Sit down with them and realistically figure out how much you spend on
that child for clothes and other items. The categories that we set up
were: tithes, clothes, Christmas gifts, other gifts, savings, and
misc. (this is the fun stuff-CDs, books, etc.). We increased their
allowance dramatically. It is not based on their chores. It is based
on how much we reasonably expect them to live off of. This is about
teaching them how to budget. We are not spending anymore money on them
than we were otherwise, but now it is putting the responsibility of how
that money is used in their hands. You will have to decide for your own
family what you expect your child to work for, and what you will give
him as an allowance. Help them decide how much should go into each
category weekly, and make adjustments later as you both see necessary.
You will also want to teach them the "dangers" of borrowing from one
category to pay for something in another. The exception would be if
they want to spend some of their misc. fun money on a gift for someone
else or something of that nature.
As your young adult grows, you can
add more categories if you want to include personal care items or
others. As their savings grows, begin teaching them they ways to invest
that money. As soon as they are ready, open them a checking account
and teach them how to keep it balanced.
Our goal is to provide for them
knowledge, wisdom, and responsibility on how to care for the money God
has entrusted to them. This is something that will affect the rest of
their lives. As they grow up and have families of their own, they will
be prepared to give and save and spend wisely, avoiding debt. They will
learn quickly the value of money, and hopefully the discipline to stay
on that budget. If we start with them early it will be fun for them,
and as they grow these principles will be instilled in them.
Some sites for resources on budgeting are:
Letitia
No comments:
Post a Comment