26
Apr
Helping Your Teens Learn How To Save With These Three Tips
As a parent, ensuring your children have been taught effective financial skills can seem like a daunting task. Entering high school, most of the talks regarding money have only been in small and sporadic amounts (such as fees for school trips or received in birthday cards) which don’t provide a larger picture of spending vs saving.
As your teen enters high school and embraces the independence that comes with it, let’s discuss some easy ways to help your teen learn the value of the cash that they have, the cash they might earn, and how to save while still having fun.
Talk About Setting Goals
Goals are important, but it’s crucial to start small. Outlining some small goals that you can match and work towards together in your own, different ways provides a wonderful incentive to achieve those goals.
For example:
Goal: Movie night (Tickets, popcorn)
Cost: $30/each
Methods:
Parent: Take them grocery shopping and explain the reasoning behind which brands you choose and make note of the sales you’re taking advantage of to help you save money
Teen: Hold off on any small, in-game purchases that get released, and have them track what they would have bought. If any are bought, remove the cost from the current list of savings
Tracking Lunch Spending
As the cafeteria and other restaurants are now options for teens, that means spending becomes a more common occurrence. By collecting the receipts after a week of lunch spending, you can use that to find the average amount spent and forecast how much money they’ll be spending on just lunch over the course of the school year. While an $8-$12 purchase two or three times a week might not seem like much at the point of purchase, showing that even removing one of them per week could help them attain a long-term financial goal like a new phone or a computer.
Going Digital
As we know, most kids won’t do much if there isn’t an app about it. There are tons of free apps that you can find to help track purchases, create goals, project savings, and help provide a larger picture of your finances. Find an app that you both understand and like to work with, and embrace a culture of goal-oriented work. The best way to teach your kids how to save is to show them the rewards that come with saving, which they’ll be able to really utilize when they’re finished high school.
You are an expert in your field, we are an expert in ours. Keenans Accounting Service can help provide all of the financial accounting that you and your family need to grow. Give us a call at 705-526-7628 to arrange a consultation by phone or via Zoom meeting. Contactless, secure document dropoff and pickup are available at our offices in Downtown Midland.