Saving For Children: Get Them Started
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What do you do when your child is constantly harassing you to buy stuff for them?
Winston Churchill said: "Saving is a very fine thing. Especially when your parents have done it for you."
Some people always seem to achieve their goals, and typically these people are experienced savers. To become experienced in savers, it is the foundations they learnt as kids which given them success as an adult. So it is extremely important that you teach your kids good saving habits early so that they have the best chance at success in the future - and also make sure you're not the one paying for everything.
Saving For Children: Where Do I Start?
Do you remember imagining buying your first car? Did you ever dream about what it would be like to have your own bachelor pad, chucking parties whenever you felt like it, nobody telling you to clean your room - wow that's a dream worth dreaming!
The place to start teaching saving for children is to start with their strong desires - the stronger the desire the more motivation they will have to save for it. Children save money best when they have that goal in the front of their minds, so let your child dream big - as long as they know that they are responsible for making your dream come true, not you.
Make sure you make them realise the total satisfaction of knowing that you have saved for something all by yourself. That feeling of independence is just as important as the goal itself. I will always remember when I bought my first car. I saved for so many months until finally I could sit in that driver's seat. It was an incredible feeling that I actually own something, not something I would need to give back to my parent's before 9PM - that was a feeling that I will always remember.
Saving For Child: Defining Goals
Get them to brainstorm the wish list, what is it they really want? Boys will typically want to save up for a car, girls may want more longer term goals like saving for college or an apartment. The trick is to get it all written down to make it real.
My recommendation would be to start with baby steps, get them to tackle the short term goals first so they start building the habit. Short term goals might be a must-see concert which is on in a few months, perhaps that awesome bike that was in the window. Short term goals are an excellent place to start - make sure they write them all down.
Savings For Child: Making The Dream Come True
Ok they've written it all down, you're half-way there - now how are they going to save enough money to achieve their goals? Depending on the goal, your child can consider a couple of different strategies
- Work backwards from the target - Ok so Lady Gaga is coming to town in 2 months time. If you daughter knows she has 2 months, then she can divide up the number of weeks and work out that she'll need to put away 50 bucks each week to be able to afford those tickets.
- Save like crazy! - Let's say your son really want to buy his first car like right now. There will be 2 deciding factors to manage: income, and expenditure. Get some extra income and spend as little as possible and he will accelerate how quickly he can buy that car.
- A Regular Saving Plan - Ok your daughter decides she wants to buy her own place. By keeping half her income aside she will be able to calculate that she could buy a place in 2 years.
Summary
Children save money when they have a clear focused goal in mind, as a parent your job is to make the clear association between achieving their goals and saving being the way to get there. If you do this, your kids will be incredibly successful in the future.
Article Source: Articlelogy.com
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