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There are a lot of financial lessons I had to learn the hard way, because my parents didn’t talk to me about money when I was young. Now, I understand that I always had the power to teach myself about finances, but the truth is that, if parents shield kids from money talk starting from an early age, it doesn’t even cross their mind to learn about finances. I thought I was so clever when, at age 23, I opened a Roth IRA, only to have to pull all of that money out two years later because—whoops—nobody told me when you are a freelancer, your taxes aren’t taken out of your paycheck but you have to remember to pay those. I hadn’t, and suddenly I owed the IRS $12K. There went my humble little Roth IRA. That’s just one of many financial lessons I learned the hard way. Spare your children of that experience, and teach them these money lessons young.
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The value of a dollar
First, make your kids start working early. Even if that just means selling lemonade or cupcakes on your front lawn (with your supervision, of course). They’ll be amazed to learn that after sitting out there for hours, they may only make enough money to buy one small toy. It’ll make them more grateful when you buy them big toys, regularly. And when you buy them things like…college tuition later.
