Five ways to encourage your kids to save

It can sometimes be a herculean task to get children enthused about saving their money. This is understandable – with new toys and games being constantly advertised to children, they’re surrounded with temptation to spend any money they receive.

Teaching your child to prioritize saving may be difficult, but not impossible. We have come up with five ways to help encourage your kids to save. These tips give your children an active involvement in their finances, instilling good financial sense at an early age.

Set rewards. Give your children appropriate savings goals (for example, set milestones of $, $10, and $20 for young children and $20, $50, $75 for older children) and set rewards for each milestone reached. The rewards don’t need to be big. Things as small as picking out their choice of candy bar at the grocery store or getting out of chores for one week can be excellent motivators.

Make it a race. If you have more than one child, create a savings race. The rules are simple: see who can save the most money in a month. Create a list of chores and set an allowance for each of them. Give your children the power to choose how much they want to save from the money the make. At the end of the month, count out each of their savings, and whoever saved the most wins a pre-determined prize.

Give them fun piggy banks. For younger children and toddlers, sometimes just giving them a unique and engaging piggy bank is enough to get them stashing their money. Check out this article on GiftLab for a list of interesting and fun piggy banks you can buy on Amazon.

Keep a visual progress chart. If your child is saving up for something big (like a videogame or expensive toy), they can sometimes get discouraged if they can’t see their progress. Create a goal chart with them and have them color in the chart whenever they save more money. They can keep track of their target and have an easy visual for how close they are getting to their goal.

Empower them to make their own decisions. Give them guidance and motivators to properly save and manage their money but try not to force them to do anything. Yes, they will make mistakes, but mistakes are oftentimes the best teacher. If they are saving towards a game but they decide to take some money out of their savings to buy something else, let them. If they wonder why it is taking so long to save up for the game, explain how taking money out of their savings is putting them behind their goal. Talk to them about what they can do to catch back up. Guide them towards the right decisions, but leave the final call up to them.