Personal Finance and Professional Management Fundamentals

May 15, 2008

Tips to Teach Money Management to Your Children

Managing money is as difficult as earning it. So, it’s always good to teach your child about earning and saving early. But using financial jargons like stock loans and investing will not bring the desired results. Instead, you should teach your child about money in an interesting manner and make it a fun-filled experience. Here are some tips:

Playing money
Educating kids through games is always a good option. You can teach your child about money management through board games, PC games or online games. Parents can interact with children over a game of ‘Monopoly’. This can be a productive, yet leisure-filled way of spending an evening together. ‘Monopoly’ is all about collection and payment of rent, as well as buying and selling of property. If your child is netsavvy, you can even play this game online, which comes with tokens and property auctions, as in the real game.

Another good board game is ‘The Game of Life’, which also has an online version. The main objective of this game is to opt for a lucrative career by getting the highest salary and signing off with a high net worth.

For internet addicts, there are several online games. A popular one is Practical Money Skills For Life, which is a collection of six games.

The first one is ‘Financial Football’, which is a quiz-style game packed with finance-themed questions. The second game is ‘Countdown to Retirement’, where you key in the career and lifestyle of your choice and you come to know if you’ll have a comfortable retired life.

The third one is ‘Ed’s Bank’, which is all about how you manage your pocket money. Then there is ‘Road Trip to Savings’, which requires the child to make decisions about income, expenses and savings to achieve financial stability

Different approach for a growing child
If you have a young adult at home, and if he/she has grown out of such games, you can try some real life techniques. If your child wants the latest bicycle, just don’t go and buy it. Ask the child to save money every month from his/her allowance. Then set a target that if he/she needs a bicycle at the end of six months, how much will he/she have to save every month to reach that target.

If your child reaches the target by the defined time, you can reward him/her with a one-time bonus which offers incentive to him/her to save even more.

Get over the piggy account
Another way you can impart financial education to high school or college kids is by opening a bank account in their name. Most private sector banks like ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank, as well as foreign banks like Citibank and Standard Chartered, offer accounts for kids.

Usually, the minimum deposit amount is Rs 5,000 and you can transfer the monthly allowance to your kid’s account. It helps if you have a savings account with the same bank.

Like any other savings account, even this one comes with a cheque book and debit card. Usually, debit cards have withdrawal limits of around Rs 500 per day, but this may vary from bank to bank. You can also set mobile alerts, which will allow you to monitor your child’s expenditure.

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