How to teach kids to balance saving and spending, plus a free Money Jars printable and three simple ways to raise a balanced spender
Most parents give a lil cheer (or a sigh of relief) when their child drops some money into a piggy bank. But on the flip side, when they spend it, usually not a lot of celebration and fanfare follows.
So without really meaning to, we end up teaching them that saving is good and spending is bad.
But a child who never spends their money might just end up fearing money as much as one who never ever saves. A skill worth teaching your mini millionaire is knowing when to hold onto a rand and when to let it go.
This week, we’re sharing three ways to help your mini millionaire learn how to do both.
Saving and spending are actually teammates.
It helps to drop the idea that saving is the "good" choice and spending is the "bad" one.
Money has more than one job. Sometimes its job is to sit and grow, and sometimes its job is to buy the thing that matters. Saving and spending are two sides of the same coin: you save now so you can spend later on something worth having.
And when mini millionaires see both as useful, saving stops feeling like going without and spending stops carrying guilt.
Takeaway: Your mini millionaire's task is to give each rand the right job.
Willpower runs out by Wednesday. A routine doesn't.
Balance is hard to manage by willpower, so build it into a routine instead.
The moment your mini millionaire receives any money (be it as a gift for their birthday, or pocket money from chores), help them split it across the Four Jars before a single cent is spent.
The Four Jar money system makes this visible, and the rule that matters most is not raiding one jar to feed another. Do the split every single time and balance becomes something that happens automatically rather than a decision your mini millionaire has to win each week.
Takeaway: When the split happens the moment money arrives, your mini millionaire never has to fight the choice between saving and spending later.
A R50 mistake at ten beats a R50,000 one at thirty.
Give your child a real budget and a real decision.
Give them, say, R50 at Checkers and let them choose how to spend it, with no rescue if they spend it all on the first thing they grab.
Did you know that kids learn more about money through their own mistakes? The sting of buying something they regret teaches more than any lecture from you.
But keep the amount small enough that the lesson stays cheap (not to mention painful). Afterwards, you can ask what they would do differently next time, and let them answer for themselves.
Takeaway: Let real money and real consequences do the teaching.
This week's free printable resource turns the balance we've been talking about into something your mini millionaire can hold.
The My Money Jars resource gives them four labels to colour in and stick onto their own jars: Spend, Save, Share, and Sow.
The Spend and Save jars sit at the heart of it, one for the fun money is meant for right now, one for the goals worth waiting on. The Sow jar takes it a step further, setting a little aside to grow over the long term.
Print it, cut it out, stick the labels on, and let the splitting begin.
