Turning Everyday Moments into Fun Financial Lessons for Children

Turning Everyday Moments into Fun Financial Lessons for Children

As parents, we want our children to grow into financially savvy, independent adults. But championing financial lessons for children about topics like budgeting, investing and credit seems lightyears away from their world of playground games and pizza parties.

The good news is you can introduce financial lessons for children seamlessly into daily life. From shopping trips to board games nights, this post shares fun, practical ways to turn routine everyday teaching moments into engaging financial lessons for children.

With creativity and patience, you’ll equip your kids with core money management concepts without them even realizing they’re learning!

Now, let’s dive in!

Allowance Doled Out in Envelopes

An allowance is often a child’s first brush with periodic payment mirroring a salary. And doling out cash in envelopes labelled with spending categories introduces fundamental budgeting skills.

Agree on a monthly allowance amount and split evenly across envelopes as followed:

• Save – for larger financial goals in the future.
• Spend – for treats that fall into the “Wants” category or for “Needs” necessary to live!
• Share – encourage social responsibility and donate to charity.
• Invest – teach how their money can work for them (e.g. purchase a toy they’ll later sell at a profit!).

Replenish on set days. When an envelope empties, the category is off limits until next payment. This visual system builds awareness around prioritizing needs like saving over wants.

If you’d rather have something more visually appealing that you can perhaps put in your child’s bedroom, something like these blocks work great and can build excitement as your child sees the ‘Save’ pot build up!

Save Pocket Money for Goals

Help your kids open their first savings account earmarked for a short-term goal like a bike or video game. The fact is, watching the pennies grow into pounds towards a coveted item builds motivation and makes them money savvy.

You can use visual progress charts so they can see funds raising towards their target. Include opportunities to ‘top up’ savings with extra chore payments to accelerate money gathering! Automating regular small deposits from pocket money or cash gifts develops lifelong saving disciplines too.

Set Savings Targets Together

Help your child identify a desired item then determine a target savings amount to reach that’s challenging but achievable.

Get them researching online prices for say, the latest Lego playset or football gear. Guide them to calculate total funds needed factoring in shipping. Then break down the target into weekly micro-savings steps.

Automate small scheduled deposits into their savings account. Watching incremental progress gives satisfaction and builds financial discipline. Most importantly, make sure to celebrate milestones at all times!

Incorporate Finance News into Family Chats

Commenting on money topics featured on kids news shows, radio or overheard from adults makes finances less abstract. Ask for their thoughts on daily reports like:

• Businesses launching/closing
• House/rental prices
• Interest rate changes
• New banking technologies
• Local fundraisers for good causes

You can also connect how these issues might impact their pocket money, e.g. “If the Bank of England drops interest rates, your savings account gains less interest.” These simple observations will build awareness in the long run.

Host Regular Family Finance Meetings

Schedule mini “board meetings” where kids help set savings goals, allocate budgets and track expenses against them. Appoint them “Chief Financial Officers” as they start important discussions on money matters.

Rotate chairperson assigning agendas. Guide them creating agenda notices before sessions. During meetings, have them report spending stats, finding better energy deals, or researching investment options.

Valuing their input makes them active stakeholders. Teach phrases like “in light of recent spending, we need to re-evaluate our entertainment spending allocation…”

IOU Notes Build Responsibility

If your child asks to borrow money to purchase something, have them sign an IOU (I owe you) note promising to pay the “loan” back by an agreed date.

Treat it like a formal lending process – calculate interest owed if you like! This makes them accountable for payments like real-world borrowing. It also builds awareness around consequences of unpaid debts and the risks involved. Adjust terms according to their age and ability.

Encourage Entrepreneurship

Does your kid have a hobby or passion? Inspire them to explore making money from it!

Nurture their idea, discuss viability, help create products or services to sell. Guide pricing, profit calculations and promotion through posters and social media. Link effort to earnings by not funding their startup costs.

Seeing the direct correlation between hard work, customer satisfaction and cash reward is an invaluable lesson on self-reliance.

You can find resources to help your child be inspired and start their business from home here in our Etsy store!

For tips and advice on how to help your child start a business at home, see our blog here!

Run a Lemonade or Treats Stand

This is the classic money maker most kids will have a blast running. Though simple, a roadside drinks and treats stand teaches so much:

• Calculate ingredients costs
• Price products to make a profit
• Create eye-catching posters
• Interact with customers
• Handle cash payments
• Balance money coming in/out
• Manage leftovers

This mini enterprise covers budgeting, financial planning, advertising and building communication skills – not bad for a summer weekend activity!

Design Products to Sell

Part arts and crafts, part business lesson! This is one fun business activity for kids to create original items to sell online or at markets. Show them designer price tags reflect not just materials, but time, effort, talent.

Building handmade goods from scratch instils an appreciation for quality over mass-production. Pricing items appropriately helps kids understand perceived value, what customers are willing/able to pay. Guide them in designing promotional materials as part of the packaging design.

Some product ideas include sewn pencil cases, painted mugs, beaded jewelry…in any case, let their entrepreneurial imaginations run wild!

Role Play Money Scenarios

Another interesting business activity for kids is recreating real life financial events through imagination play, building an understanding of concepts and decision making:

• Visiting an car dealership to negotiate on car features and payment plans
• Making a household budget balancing utilities, groceries, pets, hobbies etc
• Advising a friend struggling with debt on ways to save money and pay off loans

Let kids take the financial reins in such imaginary circumstances as they determine best courses of action. Offer gentle guidance about consequences and responsibility. Role play gives well-rounded perspectives.

Play The Shopping List Challenge

You can enlist your kid’s help writing and filling shopping lists to build maths, budgeting and organisational skills by:

• Getting them to draft the list grouped by store section
• Setting basket cost limits they must stick to
• Running the numbers on offers to calculate the best deals
• Mapping a route through the store/stalls to maximise time & ease
• Tracking items/prices on your list as you shop
• Tallying as you go so they stay under budget

From writing to mental arithmetic, planning to public speaking asking stall vendors about produce, it encourages endless learning!

Calculate Price Per Item at Supermarkets

Supermarket savviness starts young! When you’re grabbing kitchen staples, put your little ones to work comparing multi-buy offers.

Hand them two sizes of the same product, like boxes of cereal or pasta sauce jars, and ask them to use the price labels to calculate the per unit rate. What is the price per kilogram for instance? Guide them through any division required, but let them determine the better bargain.

Before you know it, you’ll soon have a sharp shopping assistant sniffing out deals alongside you!

Play Money-Themed Board Games

Real-estate buying bonanzas of junior Monopoly, banknote bundles of The Game of Life, building empires from scratch in Big Boss…games teach heaps about earning, budgeting and wealth creation.

Compensate real cash pay-outs with prizes or privileges like choosing the family movie night flick. Guide them through game play finances like mortgage repayment strategies, calculating returns on investments etc.

The tactical decision-making skills will serve them well in future money management.

Play Money Bingo

For the younger kids, practice coin and note recognition with this fun adaptation of the classic game Bingo. Create Bingo cards with pictures representing financial items instead of numbers – a £20 note, 5p piece, mobile payment symbol, wallet filled with coins etc.

Call out names of monetary elements randomly as players tick off matching cards. Not only does this improve familiarity handling money, it sneaks in numeracy skills building too, linking values of pounds and pence.

Small Financial Lessons for Children Each Day

We’ve seen that everyday is filled with simple opportunities to impart financial lessons for children, leveraging fun activities that stick with them for life. Regardless of their interests and abilities, activities like assisting at checkout counters, designing business flyers or haggling toy prices builds comfort and capability handling finances.

Consistency helps concepts take root. Weave money matters organically into playtime and conversations around home life rather than dedicated sit-downs. You should aim to facilitate more than teach. Make it collaborative and fun rather than top-down lecturing. Building family teamwork and togetherness around financial education pays off double in the long run!

With creative vision and patience helping young minds grasp money skills little by little, your kids will have the confidence and capability to make smart financial decisions as adults.

So How Can Finabee Help?

Here at finabee we believe that all children should have access to financial and entrepreneurial education to inspire and build good money habits from an early age. Read a bit more about us here and how we plan to raise a generation of finance-savvy children for the future.

You can signup to the waiting list here for our app too to be one of the first to use it and be in with a chance of winning a £50 voucher!

Now that’s a savvy investment!

Have you taught any of these financial lessons to your children recently? How did your children respond to them? Please brag about your successes in the comments below and help others in The Hive community!