How to Teach Your Kids Good Money Habits

April 3rd, 2023 by Team Sammy

Money Habits Make a Huge Difference

I was honored and delighted to be quoted in Cameron Huddleston's Forbes Article: How to Teach Your Kids Good Money Habits.

My excitement escalated further with the article's emphasis on "habits" regarding money. This resonates deeply with the core principle of the Sammy Rabbit financial literacy education strategy - focus on and stress early age habit formation!

In this blog I will be sharing "five" of valuable insights from the Forbes article that caught our attention. We affectionately refer to them as Sammy Rabbit "Gold Karat" insights. Additionally, I will offer some of my thoughts on each insight.

Let's keep advancing awareness on the importance of early age, youth, and family financial literacy education!

Gold Karat Take Away 1

"As a parent, you want the best for your children... you want to lay a foundation that they can build upon to do well in life."

Cultivating the practice of saving money is the utmost critical money habit a parent can instill in their child. It forms a robust basis and foundation for future success.

My unequivocal financial education guidance to parents and teachers: craft consistent routines, meaningful rituals, planned out patterns for your children to manage their money.

Young ones thrive on structure. In fact, we all do.

Teach kids to embrace tried-and-true methods. Methods that are known to reliably foster achievement and predictably produce success. That is what winning recipes and the right money habits do.

Gold Karat Take Away 2

"The question... is whether you’re teaching your children a key lesson that will impact whether they will do well. That lesson is about money."

Kids are learning machines. That begins at birth, maybe in the womb. They hear, see and soak in everything we do and say.

If you had a transcript of every word and sentence you spoke in a day, it would reveal we talk about money all the time, directly and indirectly. Kids pick up on these verbal and non-verbal clues. These utterances, gestures and the like begin to shape and code kids feelings, attitudes, and thinking toward money.

If you are like most people, much of what you are communicating and teaching with respect to money is probably not intentional.

Laying a foundation that children can build upon to do well in life means consciously choosing to take charge of these communications. It means to instill intentional teachings into them as consistently as you are able to do so.

We suggest to not strive for perfection, but aim to slowly and steadily increase the intentionality and thoughtfulness of your messaging.

Gold Karat Take Away 3

"Plenty of parents aren’t helping their kids become financially literate. T. Rowe Price’s 11th Annual Parents, Kids & Money Survey found that nearly half of parents said they miss opportunities to talk to their kids about money and finances."

It is not surprising that parents miss opportunities to talk their kids about money. It can be a difficult topic to discuss for a whole variety of reasons. Therefore, it is easy to avoid it. But avoiding talking to and teaching kids about money sets them up for the opposite of success, including the stress that accompanies it.

Fortunately, an abundance of tools and resources exist today to help parents get the talking and teaching started. We encourage you to check out Sammy Rabbit stories, songs and activities to start. Perhaps begin with music. Songs are simple, time-efficient, non-threatening way to catalyze conversation and learning.

Gold Karat Take Away 4

"Even if you’re not teaching your kids, they will learn lessons about money one way or another."

Refer to Gold Karat Take Away 3.

Did you know, a study published in the Journal of Economic Psychology found parents' financial behaviors significantly impact their children's financial attitudes and behaviors.

Gold Karat Take Away 5

"Your kids’ early interactions with money will likely involve spending. They see you using it to purchase things, including things for them. So it’s important to teach them from a young age that money isn’t just for spending—they should be saving money regularly, too."

The constant consumer machine reliably has kids at ages 3 and 4 saying "give me, give me, give me."

By merging the extensive daily marketing efforts with the neglected opportunities parents miss to purposefully converse with and educate their children about money, it's unsurprising that children predominantly link money with spending.

Adding complexity to this scenario is the way the term "save" is commonly used in the context of money. Consider whether it's more frequently employed in phrases like "spend your money and save" or in associations with "save your money, build your wealth, secure your future, be ready for emergencies."

Therefore, instill in your kids, even from a young age, the understanding that money's purpose extends beyond spending. Encourage them to establish a habit, a routine, a pattern of saving. This approach is precisely how parents can lay a solid groundwork for their children's prosperous futures.

5 Common Reasons Why Parents Miss Opportunities to Teach Their Kids About Money

Lack of Financial Knowledge
Busy Schedules
Fear of Overburdening Kids
Avoiding Difficult Conversations: Money can be a sensitive and difficult topic to discuss. It can create tension or conflict.
Prioritizing Short-Term Goals - immediate needs. In other words, parents may not see teaching their children about money as a top priority or critical to their children's success.

Your Thoughts

We value your input!

If you have questions, suggestions, or would like to have author Sam X Renick deliver a special financial education experience to the children and families in your network and community, contact us.

We also welcome your ideas on to make it fun and easy for parents, teachers, and community leaders to talk to and teach kids to establish great money habits at any time, but especially when they are young.

How You Can Help Sammy Rabbit Advance Kids and Families Financial Literacy Levels

Let's collaborate to get kids, families, and communities advancing their financial literacy knowledge, habits, and skills. Here are a couple of ideas on how you can help and we can work together.

Give custom, co-branded Sammy Rabbit story and activity books to kids in your local community!
Collaborate and partner with Sammy on "1" project in 2024: See a Menu of Ideas or suggest your own.

Contact us to explore more options and support Sammy's mission. Thank you. Have a #Sammyriffic day!

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