As a parent, it is my job to make sure my kids are set up for the future. One of the things we as parents need to do is to be sure our children know how to take care of finances in the future. One tool you can use to do that is The Piggy Bank Book. Do you go to the store and suddenly your kids get a case of the “I wants” or “Can I”? If you teach your kids how to save up for what they want to buy it’ll help them later in life to not be so impulsive.
Our kids earn money by doing chores. They don’t get a set amount of money each week. Each job is assigned a certain amount they can earn. At the end of the week we add up what they earned. They then have to split their money up. Here’s how we do it in our family:
10% goes to giving
10% goes to family tax
20% goes to savings
60% goes into their wallets for spending.
We want them to learn early that they don’t get to keep all their money and we want them to also learn that they should automatically budget at least 10% for giving, whether to Church, the poor, animal shelters, or whatever they choose. I love the simplicity of The Piggy Bank Book. Each sheet is a new week. They have lines to write down how they earned money, for example: chores, lawn mowing, snow shoveling, etc. They add what they’ve earned to what they have. Then they have lines for money out. So what did they spend their money on that week? Subtract that total and it will give you the amount left over and teaches you to carry it over to the next week. This is a great tool to teach them how budget and balance a checkbook later in life.
I love that they also teach kids how to open a savings account and why they should. There is a savings ledger in the back of the book as well. After that comes some blank pages that are labeled with “What I am Saving For” and “Gifts I Would Like to Give”. I can’t wait to purchase a few more of these books so all my kids can have one and we can work on budgeting for life skills as part of our home school lessons.
Currently The Piggy Bank Book is in Kickstarter Status and is looking for backers in order to get the book published. I think it’s a great book and will be pledging my backing as well. To support the Piggy Bank Book go to kickstarter. Depending on your pledge you can get some books for your kids as well!
what I would have given for my parents to have taught me about money as a youngster! This is a pretty cool idea.