5 Strategies to Teach Your Children About Saving Money

Teaching your children financial skills is critical for their future. 80% of parents believe that their children are being taught personal money matters in school, yet 90% of high school students and 87% of college students say that whatever they know about money they learn from their parents. Among parents with children 5 and older, only 26% feel well enough prepared to teach their kids about personal finances. Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy measured 12th graders' knowledge of personal finance basics and found that only 10% of high school graduates could satisfactorily answer questions about personal finance.

Not sure where to start in talking to you kids about money? You're not alone. But, much like teaching your kids to look both ways before crossing the street, managing money, is a parental responsibility that safeguards kids' future. Good habits start early in life and the savings habit brings lifelong benefits. Kids are interested in money and they can learn by example and by doing. Sharing how and why your family is saving emphasizes the importance of this positive, lifelong habit.

Engage your children using some of these simple, fun suggestions and help them learn the value of money:

1. Explain to your kids what money is all about.
You can start doing this once you see that your kids are already able to learn how to count. The earlier you can teach a child or teenager about money, including earning money, saving money, and spending money responsibility, the better prepared they will be to manage their own money.

2. Talk to your child about the family budget.
Allow them to ask questions about household finances and how you manage the household budget. Reinforce the learning process by budgeting for a family outing or a purchase.

3. Encourage children to start saving by opening a savings account for them.
If they are younger, you can still make savings "real" to them by having them build their savings in a piggy bank or clear jar. You can motivate them to allot a portion of their allowance to their savings. If you have multiple children, one way to keep them motivated is by giving a prize to whoever earned the highest amount in their savings.

4. Explaining the value of spending money can also be done at home.
You can assign some household chores and pay a small amount once they were able to do it. This will help them realize that money is not earned easily and should be spent wisely.

5. Show your children how an ATM machine works.
While many children know that money doesn't grow on trees, they may think it comes out of a wall. Help your kids understand that you must put money in the bank before you can take it out.

When you discuss money with kids, you help them develop a sense of limits. You're teaching kids that the family has to make choices about how it can spend money. There's only so much money to go around -- if you spend it on some things, you won't have it to spend on others. Teaching your children about saving money doesn't have to be a difficult task. Remember to be patient and consistent, and your children will be able to learn this critical skill in an easy and fun way.

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An educational card game that makes learning the alphabet fun! Smart ABC introduces letter recognition to the beginning reader as simple flash cards, while spelling and vocabulary skills are improved for the more advanced reader with 8 fun-filled learning games- instructions included. Each game consists of 4 complete alphabet sets, each a separate color. Smart ABC offers great word fun for the entire family! Ages 3 to Adult 1 or more Players

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Four T's Wooden Puzzle Brain Teaser

Product Details

In this wooden puzzle you need to pack the 4 T's back in the box. First, fit the 4 T's into the bigger side this is the Beginner's side; but then flip the board around and try it on the TOUGH side (Smaller side)!!! Both of the solutions are included. Comes with wooden box an cover.

How Can We Improve Our Self With Our Mind?

We often find ourselves looking at our current situation in life and thinking that it should be better. Although we realize we have some changes to make we fail to do anything to move forward a lot of people associate this problem with procrastination, although procrastination may seem like a reasonable diagnosis of the problem we need to look deeper into the issues and understand that the problem is not that we procrastinate but that we do not challenge our minds to do better.

Our minds are so used to a lack of challenge we basically refuse to exercise our minds in turn creating a "lazy" way of thinking. Your mind is the most powerful thing on this planet and we fail to comprehend that so we fail to take advantage of that. We as humans are responsible for the way the world runs as it does today, but it almost seems as there are two different types of people the thinkers and the users. The thinkers are the people who challenge their minds and create, explore, and seek knowledge, the users are the people who wait for someone else to invent, discover, and grasp knowledge and then use what someone else created without asking any questions. The sad thing is the users make up a large percentage of our population.

There are so many things that go on automatically that we never question and never fully understand and the saddest thing is we are completely content with our ignorance. When will we come to wake up from this ignorance and realize how powerful our minds our? We have the power in our minds to solve any problem that we come across as individuals the problem is we are so used to living in a society that never asks us to use our own mind to come to complex conclusions. Sure we use our mind to figure out what we are going to do during our day but think about the last time you worked out a complex mathematics equation using your own brain or the last time you felt the power of your mind. The fact of the matter is due to the luxuries we take for granted our minds have gone through years of suffering and we lack the drive to improve ourselves and grow as individuals simply because we haven't needed to push ourselves.

If you want to improve your self-image there is a simple way to achieve that, you must treat your mind right. You need to challenge your mind to unlock the powers within. We have the ability to have total self control, to determine what type of mood we will be in and to change anything we are not satisfied with. Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone and gotten to a point of anger that you "cannot" control? Simple exercises of your mind can help stop that. Ask yourself questions, why am I letting something that has no real effect on my life get to me? Or take a step back from the situation and say to yourself by getting this angry nothing is changed and the only person affected by it is me. The sooner you realize that your reaction to a situation can be controlled you will be able to live a happier life.

Things take time and with years of not using the powers of your mind you will need to constantly remind yourself to think. Think about it as if you didn't exercise your body for 18 years you wouldn't get on a treadmill and become thin and in shape it's the same concept with our minds. I urge you to at least try and get your mind thinking there will be a time where we all need to use our minds and if we have weak minds we are then weak. By reading this article you take the first steps into self-improvement start observing your surroundings and questioning everything feed your brain and open your mind.