Managing Money Concepts: How Do We Teach Our Kids?

The school year has nearly ended, or may already have ended for your children. With summer comes the opportunity for quality time spent together. This may include vacations or family dinners, each of which open up the landscape for conversations around money management. Your child may be a college student, a high school student getting their first summer job, or still in their developing years and not quite ready for work. This is a great time to talk to your children about the joys of earning money and reinforcing concepts around save, spend, and share.  

We love the theory of the Moonjar, which separates saving, spending, and sharing by jar. The use for each jar is different, and can be explained as follows:

Spend: Money and can be used up however they choose (a candy store trip perhaps?)

Save: Money they’d like to save for a specific item

Give: Money to give to a charity of their choice

If you’re interested in reading more, this article expands on how to make saving fun for young children and how to help older kids practice saving.

Along with an allowance you might want to have a discussion about opportunities for earning money.  There are a lot of needs for summer work that don’t require too much commitment. This article lists eight summer jobs ideas for children.