Teaching Your Kids Smart Money Goals

If money-related matters are on your kids’ mind, consider these strategies for making their financial goals specific and measurable:

Save a specific amount in a specific period of time

Depending on their age and income, a resolution to “save $1000 this year” could feel daunting. But broken down into smaller goals, this could be surprisingly achievable. Consider the weekly goal – just $20 per week, with 2 weeks to spare. Or perhaps the daily amount is easier to stomach: $2.74. If they find just one daily opportunity to squash their urge to splurge on a $3 item, a cool thousand could be theirs at year-end.

Trade a specific line-item for savings on autopilot

David Bach’s book Automatic Millionaire makes the case for taking your goals out of their emotional hands into the code of a scheduled transfer. Want to save $25 per month? Set up an auto-transfer with the credit union to make it happen.

Ditch recurring transactions for multiplied impact

Our subscription economy has an effect intended by companies but unintended by consumers: expenses we might have considered one-by-one twenty years ago (like purchasing an album) are now made on autopilot (e.g. Amazon Music or Spotify). The result? Seemingly small monthly transactions of $9.99 add up to big annual sums. One rapid way to achieve your kids’ goals to spend less and save more is to slash some subscriptions. Take a look at their account to uncover recurring charges and slash away.

The bottom line? Think slow and steady.

The key to making your kids’ financial goals a reality is to consider the total impact of small decisions made regularly. Trading a recurring subscription for a recurring savings transfer could have major implications once you harness the power of compound interest. So teach your kids that to take their money goals to the next level: make them specific, make them measurable, and make them automatic.

Source: bizkids.com