Kids and Money - Dollars and Sense

With kids out of school and stay-at-home orders in place, along with tightening family budgets, this is the perfect time to teach your kids about money and how it affects them! Keep them busy with some of the ideas below.

For young children:

Hand them your change jar.
Young kids love to sort and count. Let them sort your loose change and then teach them how to stack the coins in piles to make a dollar (or 10 cents in the case of pennies)

Dollar hunt.
Hide quarters, pennies or $1 bills around the house and see how many kids can find. After adding up their find they can ‘buy’ a snack valued on how much they made.

Add-it-up dice.
You need a dice and some spare change. One person rolls the dice at a time taking turns. Depending on the number on the dice they get a coin. Once they have made $1 for younger kids or $5 for older kids they get a small prize for winning and the game starts over.

1 = Quarter
2 = nickel
3 = dime
4 = 2 nickels
5 = 5 pennies
6 = 1 nickel and 1 dime

What does it cost?
You need sticky notes or paper and tape and a pen. Help children understand the true cost of things by having them label items in your home with their true cost. A $15 sticker on their favorite video, $25 sticker on their favorite toy, $500 sticker on the couch, and $800 on the cell phone or computer will help them visualize just how expensive things in their world are.

Give me change.
Have children bring you an object like an apple or a small toy and a dollar. Tell them how much the item is worth and give them change for their dollar then have them check that the change matches what they were supposed to get back. You can reverse rolls for older kids and have them be the cashier and give you the correct change for the purchase. This game helps young children understand that different things have value.

Play an online game:
Education.com has a number of fun money games to help young children identify and understand coins. . You can also find games at Abcya.com. Or, you can go to the U.S. Mint kid’s section for more fun games and money history.

Watch a Video.
There are a lot of great educational videos online, why not check out one of these great videos on money:

For older children and teens:

Play Monopoly™.
Any one of the different monopoly game versions is a perfect pass time and teaches kids about the value of money and how to manage it in addition to spending some fun family time together. Let kids take turns being the banker.

Teach them about interest.
It is important for kids to understand how interest works both in their favor through savings and against them if they take on debt. Here is a link to Bankrate’s compound interest calculator. Here is a good video to help in understanding interest rates. One real world application is to start charging interest on money that they ask to borrow. If they want money for a game or to go out with their friends and they don’t have it in their own savings tell them that they will be paying the money back with interest and arrange for a way for them to track their payments.

Show them the family budget.
Older kids and teens should understand how your family budget works and where they fit into that structure. Have them follow along as you review your monthly budget and watch you pay bills. You can use the blank monthly budget forms at accesseducation.org.

Talk about future savings and money planning.
Start planning your next family vacation and have your kids research the cost of hotels in that area, travel costs, eating out and entertainment expenses when you get to your destination. Have them help create a plan to start saving money for the trip.

Teens who are older need to understand how much their college education might cost and what living expenses they’ll have once they graduate from high school. They should also start using a money tracker to record their spending so that they understand where their money is going. Start early helping them understand the costs they will soon face and how to prepare and save for those opportunities. If they have an income they should also have a personal budget in place. Here is a great list of possible college expenses to consider. Here is a convenient tuition tracker for colleges and Universities. Remember the amounts listed don’t show fees or book/supply expenses. .

Try fantasy trading in penny stocks or commodities.
Before you investing your money into the stock market you can practice trading on paper first. This s a great tool for kids to learn how investing works and to see how markets react in real time. It’s as easy as writing down on a piece of paper the amount of money that you want to start trading with and then you write the name and value of the stock the day you buy it. Every day you list the value of the stock you ‘purchased’ as well as buy and sell orders as prices go up and down. Add or subtract your earnings and losses. The idea is to grow your money by watching for growth trends in the market without risking actual money. You can view current stock prices on the Marketwatch website and you can look up individual stock performances with their stock name/symbol here. There are also sites like Investopedia that offer virtual games to learn trading basics as well. Here is a video you can watch to see how the stock market works.

Take a class.
With extra time at home it’s a good time to take a class. Khanadacemy.com has multiple free lessons available on personal finance, understanding taxes , saving , and understanding interest and debt. U.S. News has also published an article listing 7 worthwhile online personal finance courses.

Need some more ideas to help kids learn strong money skills? Here are a few more good articles from FFEF.

If you can teach your kids about money matters early, they will be much more financially successful in life!