When did you start explaining money to your children ?

Driving with no 2 son’s teacher and 3 children in the car an argument ensued in the back seat with one child being so sure they were right they said they bet the others one dollar.
Despite me telling them gambling was wrong my son upped the stakes by betting one dollar U.S. Rather embarrassed I said be quiet, you don’t even know what one dollar U.S. is.
Back came the indignant reply “Yes I do. It’s two point four T.T.”
The correct exchange rate ?.
The children were five years old.
Unsurprisingly my son now works in the banking sector.

Bubbe, I agree with you. It is not formally Being Taught About Money By Their Parents, but the attitudes and behaviours they pick up as they go.

We had a classic example of this yesterday. DGS, 12, was explaining why he always wins at Monopoly and his father doesn't. 'Daddy', he said 'spends all his money buying every house he can, but when he lands on a good one, he finds he has no money left. I just buy good houses and never spend all my money'.

This actually reflects his parents attitudes to finance, to be careful and never spend every penny they have.

Statutory Statement I understand that those living in poverty do not have this option.

PS, neither of them have Credit Cards or debts.

Pocket money from a young age, when they got to about 10yrs old they could earn more by doing various jobs around the house and garden.
When they were 13 they were given a monthly allowance, out of this they paid for their clothes and all the other things they wanted, including all gifts they wanted to buy, the only things we paid for was their School Uniform, after the first month it worked well, but the first month they went out and blew it all the first week, that was a swift learning curve!
When they were older they got Saturday jobs to supplement their allowance.

When my sons were small, the supermarket had scales for the fruit and vegetables (which weren't pre-packed). Just to keep them entertained and to stop them running around the shop as if it were a playground I got them to select some e.g nice looking tomatoes ~ weigh them and then we would work out roughly how much it would cost. At the time I didn't appreciate how valuable this was as a life skill on so many levels. From about the age of 3.

They both grew up in the 70s 80s with a good understanding of how money worked from a young age.
When they were 12 years old they were given an allowance for clothing and managed this and added to it from casual jobs until they left home.
I can honestly say all through University they never asked us for any money ever. They both worked all the time as well as studying.
Both have credit cards as adults and pay off whatever they spend in full at the end of the month by direct debit as I do.

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Ours were brought up to understand working to earn money to spend . they each had an age-appropriate job to earn their pocket money.
Younger son was very enterprising. Aged about 12, unknown to us, he was spending his pocket money on penny bubblegums and selling them for 2p at school. Teachers not happy. So that was stopped and he changed to 'breeding' pet mice in our conservatory to sell to his friends Until a cat got in one day.
Strangely, he is now the least mercenary of the 4 and they live on next to nothing.
As to using cards, I have little to say as I'm a complete technophobe. but always know how much I have in the bank

Surely, we teach our g.children about money from as young as possible. Yes, now we have to take into account that we are living in a nearly cashless society - likely to become totally cashless within the next ten years. So, they get taught about that and how to manage it.
When I was a small child, back in the 1940's, I though my Mums purse was magical - and always had money in it. I learned soon enough that was not the case, so children, today, have to learn that ATM machines and plastic cards only have the money that is put into them. No magic involved.
Pre-loaded cards can be used soon enough for slightly older children, and by the time they reach their teens, a bank account can become theirs. Learning to think ahead and save for things they want ('need' in their language!), cannot be started too soon,.
I find it annoying that parents purchase quite expensive items for g.parents birthdays, xmas etc. and say it from the child. Far better for a much less pricey item is actually purchased by that child, which has been saved for out of their pocket monies. Nicer for the g.parents, and an excellent lesson for the child.
Once they are old enough to actually have their own credit/debit cars they need to learn problems that can ensure. How to watch out for scams, how to check their own account regularly to ensure no suspicious use (cloning). how to cope if their card is cloned.
Those that go off to Uni will have large sums of money at their disposal, although they have to know how to work out that most of it needs earmarking for fees, rent, food, etc. etc.

Even at a very young age, keeping a check on their own 'finances' is a wonderful less on adding and subtraction. AND, even very young children need to know that their adults do not have unlimited funds.

My own DC had building society accounts where some birthday or Christmas money went plus weekly pocket money.
It didn't make any difference as they grew up whether they became savers or spenders.

I opened little piggy bank accounts for mine but didn't actually give pocket money. Instead I paid for little jobs to be done silly little jobs my son when older and sensible was an expert at doing the ironing.
When they were both teenagers they got weekend and summer jobs they loved earning money. My son went to college to qualify in a trade and advertised with business cards as a handyman. My daughter was at Uni and had part time jobs catering they both had sensible heads on their shoulders.
I think it's because we ran a business they learnt you have to work hard to reap rewards nothing is free.

Purpledaffodil

DGS aged 11 has a Go Henry card. Uses it very wisely and it’s set up so parents know what he is buying etc and it doesn’t allow overdrafts. At Easter we put some money on it via a link and got a lovely thank you message which he’d been prompted by the card to write but composed himself.
Seems a good preparation for the cashless society.

Brilliant!

hazel93

Back in the day money was something you could see, hold and either save or spend.
Playing "shops" with DGD (aged 2 ) the other day I asked her "How much is that please ? " I was expecting her to say anything from X pounds to trillions but no, she said " Silly Nanny I just need your card."

Piggy bank now ordered !

I don't think money (coins and notes) is the problem here. It's not being taught about cost and value. Your question "how much is that, please" may be one she hasn't heard.

The teaching of value and simple bookkeeping using the Micawber principle "'Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 19 [pounds] 19 [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income 20 pounds, annual expenditure 20 pounds ought and six, result misery." starts from day one and stays with us. It may seem easier to us to use coins and notes to teach them but the biggest lesson will be teaching them not to get into debt using a card and we need to find a way to do that. So perhaps a toy card and the question "have you got enough in your bank account?" would be more appropriate these days.

Teaching them to plan a budget on a spreadsheet (or whatever updated method of that there is) would also be useful. All my AGC set up a budget before they went to uni with my daughter's help. We are all unaware of the cost of some things now, let alone at that age.

The subject of what you are going to have to pay for your course at Uni was usually raised by her students in their last year. After the usual horror that they have to pay at all, she would always ask them what they thought an A level (or similarly appropriate course) cost. Of course, "it's free" was often the answer. We can all be guilty of not valuing the "free" because we don't know the cost.

There is much to teach children about life but, as most of us can testify, it's not easy and it's time consuming and the only way to make it easier is to start from day one chatting to the baby in the pram or car seat as if they understand - they soon will.

DGS aged 11 has a Go Henry card. Uses it very wisely and it’s set up so parents know what he is buying etc and it doesn’t allow overdrafts. At Easter we put some money on it via a link and got a lovely thank you message which he’d been prompted by the card to write but composed himself.
Seems a good preparation for the cashless society.

We have always been very lax, never got into a regular system of pocket money. They were all three good at sums and I expected them to work it out from there.

DS1 is quite the penny pincher, although he and his wife probably earn by far the most of all of us. Having lived in the US for 5 years, he uses credit cards, but he may not have done if he had stayed in cash-obsessed Germany.

DS2 is more hand-in- mouth.as a teenager he wanted to buy himself an electric guitar. He got a Saturday job and as soon as he'd earned the necessary amount, he stopped going. That guitar gave us all a lot of pleasure and fun thoug. Fortunately, DiL2 is more realistic and the sensible one in that family.

DS3 is very good with money. He is what the Germans call a "Dauerstudent" at his 25th semester at Uni, but he has told us we can cut back his allowance. He never buys new clothes, walks about like a tramp, with holes in his jeans. He always reminds me of the joke about the Scotsman who surprised his friends when he bought a new comb because a tooth had broken off of the old one. When asked why, he replied "It was the last tooth". (The Germans have no qualms about hanging on to sterotypes about the Scots being mean. Don't worry, they'll catch up eventually).

When I was teaching PSHE I taught budgeting and noticed that many of the 16/17 year olds had an inflated sense of how much money they would be likely to earn when starting out on their future careers and vastly underestimated the cost of bills they would need to pay.

The funniest lesson was when I’d asked them to do an estimate of the cost of bills they might be expected to pay on a one bedroomed rented flat. They genuinely thought I was winding them up when I told them they’d all neglected to account for a water bill - because it was obvious to them that water is ‘free’ - they were so shocked to realise it must be paid for!

Mine had pocket money on a Friday and once they were 14 they got little jobs and the pocket money was replaced by a clothing allowance. Together we worked out how much we could afford to spend on clothes for them in a year, divided the amount by 12 and gave it to them as a monthly allowance. I told them that I wouldn’t bail them out if they spent unwisely - and I never did.

None of my children have ever been in debt and three of my children won’t even have a credit card - one of them is now an accountant! ?

We did the pocket money thing mainly spent on sweets although DS was fond of Match box cars. When DD got to about 15 we negotiated a clothing allowance. She could buy with this what she wanted - I still bought any school items and underwear. She was very happy with this and was careful what she bought and when she had a piece of clothing amongst birthday gifts she was always delighted.
She could augment her pocket money by doing a bit of dusting and hoovering and when she was old enough she had a part time job in the local supermarket. I continued with the allowance until she started work and bought her clothing when she got to the going to interview stage.

This reminded me of playing with my grandson. He had all the plastic food set up like a shop, I gave him an old calculator and he asked for a money card. I gave him an old loyalty card, which he swiped over the calculator and said I could take my shopping now. I had to provide my own bag.

It’s an interesting consideration, how children today will learn about money and spending. Mine, probably like most children, learnt with pocket money and I suppose that can still happen today but they’ll also need to learn how to manage money online. That’s not so easy if, like my oldest GC, they don’t have phones.

My youngest was very canny with her pocket money. We lived abroad and she would check the exchange rate and then request her money in the best currency.

Our two understood that things had to be paid for from the time they began to ask for treats. They managed their own pocket money from around 4, spending and saving for bigger things as they chose. Our youngest grandson still has money to spend, the older two use cards but do love to have money sometimes, they say it feels special . Chatting to our 15 year old granddaughter last week she asked me how I thought she could keep track of what she was spending with her card and organise her bank account. She’s very aware how easy it can be to overspend with on line and debit card shopping.

Pocket money. The same way as I learned I think from around three or four years old as part of learning to count and add up, etc.

My DGDs started the same way but moved on to Gohenry debit cards around about eight years old. They seem to be able to hoard their money and keep track of how much they have.

M0nica

It just happened.

It has, with Covid.

If older DGC goes shopping she has a pre-loaded card; her pocket money gets put on to the card and she doesn't carry cash. I don't think any of her friends carry cash either.

cornishpatsy

When today's children are adults I can see it being a mostly cashless society.

It would be better to teach them about debit cards there is one that does that called goHenry.

Even if it is a cashless society, they still need to learn that waving a debit card in front of a card reader doesn’t mean ‘that’s it’.

That is why so many people are in a mess financially, not seeming to realise there still needs to be funds in the bank.

Via pocket money, once they were school-age.
It wasn't a lot, but enough to buy a comic and a few sweets every Saturday. The choice was theirs, as long as they had enough to pay for it.
Penny sweets were perfect for encouraging them to do some maths and get as much as possible with their money each week.

By their early teens, both were keen to have paper rounds and then more varied jobs to give them money to spend as they saw fit.

In their case, it certainly did no harm, judging by their attitude to money as adults.