Spend Smart
Parents, teach your kids to spend smart! It is a great money habit!
Impart the invaluable lesson of smart spending to your children from an early age. It will help them protect against the thousands upon thousands of spending messages that will bombard them from birth and distract them from their aspirations. It will empower them to defend their dreams and avoid frittering away their future!
By teaching children to spend smart, you equip kids with the tools necessary to navigate a "hyper" consumer-driven society with confidence, competency, and resilience.
This early education lays the foundation for a lifetime of financial well-being, enabling them to achieve their dreams and goals while sidestepping the pitfalls of impulsive and unnecessary spending.
Spending Smart Means
Share with children these examples of what spending smart means:
Thinking before spending.
Spending less than one earns or receives.
Having a written budget. This includes planning, reviewing, and tracking what we spend - where we want our money to go and where it actually goes.
Using lists.
Prioritizing wants and needs.
Comparing, contrasting, and asking questions about purchases before spending.
Avoiding impulse spending.
Working out and building up their "waiting muscle." In other words, embracing and giving a hug to delayed gratification.
Minimizing debt (borrowing) and avoiding paying interest on it.
4 Easy and Fun Steps to Teach Your Kids to Spend Smart
Have kids:
Listen to the Sammy Rabbit money songs: Don't Spend More Than You Make, Budget, Wants and Needs, and Make Your Choices Count.
Read the lyrics to all of the above songs.
Read the story Sammy's Big Dream. Review and discuss page 19. This page demonstrates Sammy Rabbit's decision not to spend money and save it instead to reach his savings goal and make his dream come true.
Follow up the story and songs using them as a catalyst for conversation and questions like: What are some things you can do to become a smart spender?
Sammy Rabbit says: "You can do it. Now, get to it!"
Let's Get Kids Financially Literate
Let's get kids financially literate and dreaming big, their families and communities too.
Here is what you can do:
Enroll kids in Sammy Rabbit's Money School! Take advantage of our FREE or low-cost, family friendly PREMIUM Memberships today!
Here is how you can make a difference:
Collaborate and partner with Team Sammy on '1' or more financial education strategies. See our Menu of Project Ideas or suggestion one of your own!
Contact Sammy
CONTACT US today!
We welcome your questions, suggestions, thoughts about Sammy Rabbit and his mission to get kids, families & communities financially literate.
Your friends in early age, youth and family financial literacy education for the last 20+ years and counting.
More Money Lessons
Money Lesson 1 Parents Should Teach Kids: Saving Money is a Great Habit!
Money Lesson 6 Parents Should Teach Kids: Earning Money is Fun to Do!
3 Outstanding Quotes and Sammyriffic Wisdom on Spending Smart
Share and discuss these quotes with your kids. Or do the same with some of your personal favorites.
(1) Be frugal. Live within your means.
― Benjamin Franklin
(2) Be mindful of your spending habits.
― Mellody Hobson
(3) Shift from being a consumer to being an investor.
― Robert Kiyosaki