Improving Family Finances and Teaching Children the Value of Money.
August 22, 2016 by ThySista
Filed under Business, Money, Opinion, Weekly Columns
(ThySistas.com) Having a child is a big responsibility. It is one of the most amazing things that you can do in life, though. With the rewards and fulfillment that parenthood brings, there are also some certain obligations. Your life completely changes for starters. Things won’t go back to the way they were for a while. And even then, you are still parents and have to put your children first. There are plenty of financial obligations that come along with being a parent too. Even from the early days, there are lots of things that you should consider. From birth, there are considerations like how the baby will be fed and cared for. Will they be fed with formula or go into childcare? All of these questions need to be answered as they all have financial implications. The questions or questions of money, don’t seem to go away as a parent; even as our children get older.
As our children will need more and more as we get older, we need to plan for it. When our children are born, setting up a bank account or ISA for them is a great way to save. If we can set aside a little each
month, then it will help greatly as time goes on. The money might be used for cars, weddings, homes, or college tuition. A lot of those things mentioned can still cost a lot, and not everyone is able to save that amount. So there are options as our children get older. You can get loans to help to pay for college, for example. Even after they have graduated, there is such a thing as a parent plus loan deferment. Meaning that you can defer the repayments for a short time. So there is help available if you need more time to be able to pay back for your child’s education.
It is important to talk to our children about the value of money and how to manage it from when they are young. It isn’t the type of thing that you can suddenly spring on them when they are about to head off to college. If they can learn how to budget and live within their means, then it will stand them in good stead. You might start by giving them a certain amount of money as an allowance. Quite often it can be a good idea for your children to have to do something to earn the money.
Doing chores and helping out is a healthy thing for them to learn to do. They will have to work for their rewards later in life so they should work for them when they are younger too. It will more than likely lead to them being more savvy with their own money. If money is seen as something that is easy to get, they might spend it quickly and waste it. If they learn the value of it, they are likely to be much more frugal as they go throughout their life.
Staff Writer; Shannon Cooley
