Money Skills for Kids

Lesson 3: Elementary & Middle School Children And Money

Allowing children to experience the consequences of “saving” and also “spending”

Your child(ren) are ready to embark on their spending adventures! Many grocery stores now offer small “Customer In Training” carts. Next time you go to the supermarket, take your child(ren) along and allow her/him to pick out some candy or a small toy. Be sure you ask your child if s/he brought money along, and help your child to understand that $5 (for example) may not go a long ways, if s/he does not spend it wisely.

Allow your child to pick and choose what s/he wants, but before you go to check out, be sure to do some math. This will probably be one of the first lessons of instant gratification delay; your child will need to choose what s/he wants to buy. This means that s/he will probably not be able to purchase something else. At the same time, s/he will need to understand that once the weekly allowance is spent, there will be no more money, no more candy, etc. for one whole week until the next allowance is received.

A great game that you can play with your child to help her/him to understand the concept of budgeting, is Monopoly. An on-line version of the game is available, as well as a knock-off version which looks very much like the original, but which is free to use. It is called Middopoly. (6)

Now is also a good time to introduce elementary school children to the art of finding bargains and clipping coupons. Buy a Sunday paper and go through the inserts. Explain that some stores offer sales, during which their prices for certain items are lower than their competitors’ prices. If your local grocery stores send out flyers, read through them and put them next to each other. Help your child recognize and understand the prices, help her/him to compare prices for such items as bread, grapes, etc. Also, this is a good time to point out that some advertisements may look similar, but are actually not. For example, some stores advertise 6-packs of soda, while others advertise 12-packs. Show your child how to get out the calculator to calculate the per can price for the soda.

Make it a Sunday game to hunt for specific coupons and sales and be sure to congratulate your child on finding a true bargain! Manufacturers’ coupons offer a great learning opportunity not only for money management and budgeting, but they are also a great tool to hone math-, reading- and even calendar skills! Involve your child in sorting coupons by date or brand (depending on the system you are using). Explain why you want to use a certain coupon: is it for an item you usually buy or is it to try a new brand or product?

The next time you take your child to the supermarket, show them how much money can be saved on one item by using a coupon. Additionally, compare brand-name prices with coupons to generic brand prices without coupons. Help your child to understand that buying brand name groceries is usually more expensive than buying generic items, but that oftentimes it is affordable to buy brand name items with coupons.

The CouponMonth Site offers a great tool entitled TEACHING KIDS MATH AND HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT USING COUPONS.

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