Help your teen build strong money management skills.
One of the best ways to build a strong financial foundation in teens is by starting a savings plan early on. Over the past few years, there have been more teens saving money and the results are clear. When you take the time to teach good financial practices to your children, these skills will carry them through life, helping them to build up a nest egg that they can rely on in the future. If you want to start your kids down this financial path, here are a few tips on how to get your teens saving money now.
1. Set up a reward system.
At first, before the benefits start to kick in, your child may need some extra incentive to start saving money. Try setting up either a reward once they reach a certain dollar amount, or you may even want to offer to match their savings, dollar by dollar. This is a great way to get your teens saving money and offers them some real incentive, as well as hard evidence, that saving is very beneficial. Even if you only add a few dollars to their account at a time, this extra money will help them get motivated and stay focused.
2. Start discussing sound financial principles with your child.
Once you’ve got your teens saving money, it’s a great time to start talking about setting financial goals, and working on the follow through. For example, you can ask your child to set a goal as to what they would like to be able to buy, that they cannot afford right now. This helps them see the value of the hard work they are putting in towards saving for that item and once again, will keep them motivated. However, it is important that they understand that spending all that they have saved up isn’t the best solution and that they should have long term goals, as well as short term goals.
3. Take them to the next level.
Once you have your teens saving money and they are learning more about goal setting, you can take their lessons to the next level by incorporating information about setting up more than one stream of income. Help them to set up a portfolio, use a p2p lending service like Loanio to lend money, or open a high yield savings account for them so that they can start to watch their money grow. This is also a good time to start talking about investments with your teen, even if they can’t quite make their own just yet.
4. Get them interested in continuing education.
One of the best ways to get your teens saving money is by teaching them how the stock market works and how they can add to their savings account easily. There are numerous online sites that will provide users with free example “money” that can be used to invest in theoretical stocks. This is a great training method that has no risk, but can be incredibly useful in teaching lessons about stocks. You may even want to take part in these yourself and set up a competition to see who can make the best theoretical picks.
Photo Credits: 1
Originally posted 2008-10-31 04:55:15. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Related Articles -
Teach Teens to Save Money /caption] One of the biggest reasons why having a teenage child can be difficult is because teenagers tend to spend money easily and freely without any real regard for what goes into earning that money in the first place. Teenagers tend to spend a great deal of money on clothes,...... -
Do You Ask Yourself, How Do I Plan for Retirement? /caption] Don't you think that every working man and working woman is entitled to enjoying a secure and comfortable retirement once they are no longer working? Due to the fact that we have taken so many strides in health care and in medicine, many people are living longer and healthier...... -
Are Your Gadgets Sucking Your Wallet Dry? /caption] We live in a digital age and the vast majority of us rely heavily on numerous technological devices to get us through our days. What we may not realize however is just how much these gadgets cost to run. Companies throughout the United States are finding out that they...... -
How Do I Plan For Retirement Every working man and woman is entitled to a retirement that is secure and comfortable. Saving and planning for retirement is not necessarily an easy process however because we are living longer and healthier lives in general, which means we need more money to survive retirement than ever before. If...... -
3 Tips for Teen Investing Parents like to complain that their teenage children do not listen to them. However, when it comes to matters dealing with money, the opposite is actually often true. Teenagers often welcome the advice that their parents have to give regarding finances, money management and investments. In the past few years,......
Related Sites -
Are You Genetically Able to Save Money? Like with many traditions and habits, we all take away life's important lessons from our families, mainly our own parents. While we are trying to keep our finances on point and get into better habit of budgeting and managing our money, it may be worthy to note that what you...... -
Summer Savings Series #1: Food Is A Big Expense. How Can You Save? Food Is Expensive Isn't It? I recently asked my twitter.com followers what they spend on groceries every month. I got answers ranging anywhere $250/month for a family of two to over $600/month for a family of 4. The largest family was a family of 6 who spends $450/month on...... -
Weekend Roundup - Super Soakers on Clearance Fun This past week I was lucky enough to find two super soaker water guns on clearance at Target for $1.98 each and at that price, of course, I purchased them both! Mr. NMOM and the kids have been having a great time today playing in the backyard with the water...... -
Free Money: New Savings Account Bonuses The competition for your money is greater than ever before. American capitalism has reached its best, and there are all sorts of solid investments which would love to keep your savings or your investments for you. These are not just shysters either. There are many very-solid companies out there...... - Smarty Pig Review: A Review of SmartyPig’s Online Savings Offering Smarty Pig has teamed up with West Bank to provide consumers with an innovative new way to meet their savings goals and is empowering shoppers to make large purchases without relying on credit cards. Here’s our Smarty Pig Review: Financial author Dave Ramsey frequently says that personal finance is......
Tags: best solution, extra money, financial foundation, financial goals, financial path, financial practices, financial principles, great time, hard evidence, high yield savings, long term goals, nest egg, next level, reward system, saving money, short term goals, Stock Market