Six Ways your Kids can Help out with the Budget!
Is the rising price of food and gas wrecking havoc with your monthly budget? Put your kids to work – after all, you use the gas to take them to soccer practice and they eat the food that you buy for the pantry. I’m not talking about having your five-year-old flipping burgers for eight hours a day (there are laws against such things, you know.) There are things that kids can do to make a difference in the monthly budget. Heck, even if your family is rolling in dough, it doesn’t hurt to have your kids do their part to help with expenses – it’s good practice for when they’re adults.
1- Let kids start paying for their “stuff”. If you’re at the grocery store and Junior begs you to buy him a lollipop, tell him that he is now in charge of buying his treats and toys. Make sure you also do plenty of teaching about the value of money and savings, but let Junior buy some of his own things.
As Junior gets older and starts earning more money, let him pay for more of his expenses. My oldest son has a cell phone and I don’t pay one penny of his bill. Let me tell you, he is real careful not to go over on minutes and his careful not to download too many extras – well, he doesn’t anymore. One month of paying $0.45 per minute because he exceeded his airtime minutes was enough to keep him careful about such things.
Kids can help pay for their own clothing. Parents don’t need to fork out $75 for designer jeans. You can give your child a set frugal amount of money for their clothing budget. If they want to spend money on expensive name-brand clothes, let them make up the difference.
2- Teach them to cook from scratch. In our busy lives, it’s all too easy to grab dinner at the fast food drive-thru. Convenience foods fill our shopping carts because, well, they’re convenient. Not only are fast foods and meals-in-a-box expensive, they are bad for our health.
It takes time to prepare healthy meals from scratch. This is where you can put your kids to work. Take some time to teach them how to make meals. My thirteen-year-old daughter is the bread maker of the family. This has saved us a lot of money. She makes five loaves at a time and we freeze any that we aren’t going to use right away.
Have your child wash and chop enough vegetables for the week. That way, you have vegetables ready for whenever you need them. Even the youngest child can help out. My two youngest children like to wash the lettuce in our salad spinner for our dinner salads. I have a friend that assigns each of her five children a day of the week to fix dinner. They plan what they will make in advance and then do all the cooking.
3- Assign your child to be on Utilities Patrol. Teach your child the importance of conservation. Let him look at the utility bills and ask him for suggestions for ways to lower the usage for the following month. Make it a game to see how much you can lower your utility bills. Play board games or read in the evening instead of watching television to help cut back on electricity. See who can get clean while taking the shortest shower to help save on the water bill.
4- Give your child a garden to take care of. Food is expensive these days, and a lot of the time, the quality isn’t very good. Let your children help plant and take care of a garden. If you have a big garden, maybe your children can each have their own rows or sections to take care of. I like to have raised garden beds. They’re easier for me to take care of and I don’t get as many weeds. It’s a great experience for a child to have his own garden box. Let them plan what vegetables to plant and show him how to take care of them. Growing vegetables is a great way for children to help with the family budget.
5- Let them come up with ways to save on gasoline. Brainstorm with your children about ways to save on gasoline. Could you consolidate trips? What about carpooling with friends? What about (gasp) walking? I saw some pictures recently of families traveling by large bikes in India. Some bikes had large baskets or carts attached to them for hauling the entire family. I got to thinking that having one of these family bikes wouldn’t be such a bad idea!
6- Have a family council. Sit down as a family and let your kids see how a budget works. Get the bills out so they can see how much money it takes to run a household. When it comes to miscellaneous expenses, get your children’s input. As parents, you have the final say, but kids usually come up with some great ideas. Tell them you have “X” dollars for the monthly entertainment budget and get their ideas on how to make the most of it.
There are many things that kids can do to help with the family budget and they will learn valuable life skills in the process. So, go ahead – put your kids to work!
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Excellent advice, Melissa. Our kids have had to work for their extras since about the age of 4. It was too important to me that they not grow up with a spendthrift attitude and get themsleves into debt before they graduate high school. I firmly believe your money attitudes are built very early on.
Lately I’ve made more of a point to be open with shopping and spending (in other words, why we’re not buying this, why I’m looking for a cheaper brand…). The effect is amazing. My son is starting to understand that he can comparison shop and get more for his money. And after a recent vehicle purchase (where we honestly answered questions about the cost of the vehicle) my daughter decided to save for a car when she’s older. So I explained how we could open a savings account and earn her more per dollar, and now she can’t wait to go to the bank–and these guys are only 8 and 7! Even I am surprised at how respoinsible they are becoming at an early age.
Parents, you are really doing your kids a huge favor by doing these things!
Excellent post. You have some great ideas to get kids involve in learning about money.