Yahoo Finance 3 Fun Family Activities That Will Teach Your Kids to Save Money
No matter how much you nag about the importance of saving money, your kids are going to learn a lot more from how you yourself spend, and the kinds of attitudes you reinforce when participating in family activities.
So if you constantly tell your kids that overspending is bad, but then spend all your family weekends making them tag along on shopping sprees, don’t be surprised if they follow suit when they grow up.
Instead, spend your family weekends doing these three activities that will inculcate in your child a thrifty, entrepreneurial spirit.
Tend a flea market stall together
One of my first attempts to make money as a teenager involved pooling money together with a few classmates for a stall at the Holland Village flea market, where we proceeded to try to convince people to buy our old clothes and knick knacks.
Selling your stuff together at a flea market can be a lot of fun for kids, as for most of them, this will be the first time they get to pretend to be a grown up stallholder.
This gives you the chance to teach them how to bargain, and also introduces them to the thrill of making their first dollar.
At the end of the day, tally up your profits, and give your kids a portion of the earnings so they can enjoy the satisfaction of earning their own money.
Make stuff to sell on Etsy
Shared hobbies are a great way to bond as a family. And if you can use this hobby to make a bit of spare cash, all the better.
Etsy lets you sell handmade crafts online to an international audience. You might (or might not) get rich doing it, but you’ll learn a thing or two in the process.
So knit and crochet hand puppets and dolls, and sell them on Etsy. If you’re a photography enthusiast, teach your kid a trick or two and then sell the prints on the site. And if your kid is a budding artist, work together to turn his creations into postcards or art prints.
Other than enjoying the process of working on your creations together, you can also research how to optimise your Etsy page to attract more hits, which is a good introduction to marketing and online businesses.
Prepare meals together
Most kids sit down at the dinner table with no idea of where their food comes from, how it’s made and how much it costs. These same kids risk growing up into adults who don’t know how to feed themselves unless they’re paying someone else to cook for them.
Turn meal prep into a family affair and you’ll be teaching your child cooking and budgeting skills at the same time.
Pick a recipe together, and then take a trip to the supermarket as a family, where you can look for ingredients you’ll need, using this as a chance to get your child involved in comparison shopping. Even lower primary-age kids can get involved with simple preparation tasks such as egg beating.
You can even take this meal prep session a little further by adding up the cost of ingredients, and then showing your child through an Internet search how much a similar meal would cost at a restaurant.
What are your favourite family activities? Tell us in the comments!
Related articles:
Getting Pregnant and Having a Baby in Singapore – How Much Does It Cost?
Child Care Subsidies in Singapore 2018 – What Do You Qualify For?
4 Surprising Ways Good Parenting Can Lead to Bad Money Values
The post 3 Fun Family Activities That Will Teach Your Kids to Save Money appeared first on the MoneySmart blog.
MoneySmart.sg helps you maximize your money. Like us on Facebook to keep up to date with our latest news and articles.
Compare and shop for the best deals on Loans, Insurance and Credit Cards on our site now!
More From MoneySmart