My daughter is only 1½ years old and therefore is mastering the fine art of walking and running, rather than building the right portfolio. Anyway, as she gets older, I'd like to introduce her to personal finance and investing early. One of the things I'm grateful to my parents for is instilling in me a work ethic and the value of savings and investing. That and my father got me interested in precious metals from an early age and I've done OK with them. Anywho, to those fellow parents out there, how did you introduce your off-spring to personal finance concepts? How did you get them saving? How did you introduce the more complex ideas regarding investments? Thanks for any thoughts.
I'm not a parent but mine forced me to invest everything I had! It was great since I had enough money to buy a car when I was of age.
Start with the basics of money... what it is, where it comes from, what it's used for. Obviously she is too young at the moment, but when she gets a bit older she can do chores around the house and get paid a little for it... then the next time you go to the store let her buy candy etc. with the money she earned. As for the investing part... I think that comes maybe 10 years down the line. Saving up small amounts of everything she gets so she can buy something more expensive what she really wants.
Giving a kid pocket money or having him/her earn the pocket money is the best way to start teaching them how to mange money. You could teach them about investment at that time. As they grow older you can try to get them take a stab at being at starting a business or at least test the waters: Set up a lemonade stand so the kid can sell lemonade over the summer?
I agree that it is very important to teach the little ones the value of money. When we were growing up, my siblings and I were not given an allowance. If we wanted something that was not a necessity, then we did extra chores in the home for a very small fee. I remember there was a time I wanted to buy a novel and I had to till the land for a few weeks to raise the amount. Now I understand the value of money thanks to the lessons learned in childhood.
I think it is very important to teach the kids the value of the dollar, even if right now it's value isn't very high . So far I haven't been able to teach my two anymore than we can't afford that right now.
I purchased the Robert K. Rich Dad Poor Dad for Teens for my daughter, and I also discuss some of the basic principles of finance to her in bite sized pieces (you know how the attention span of kids are). This is giving her a foundation and some things that she can build upon as she gets older. I also intend to bring her to my office to let her do some basic work and watch me conduct business as well.
Yep my father made me read that when I was younger. It helped me out a lot. There was also another book written by him correct ? How to make people like you and make friends ?
Also perhaps when your daughter is older you can open up a bank account for her. She can work around the house and/or allowance and save the money up. Advise her as necessary but ultimately let her see the money grow and I think this may instill a positive vibe of saving up money from hard work and diligence.
Am not yet a parent but i like that notion of teaching children on the importance of savings and investing from an early age onwards...i 'll definitely do that when they show up
