Want to get your teen to get a good grasp of money management? These tips are sure to help you achieve that goal.
As teenagers inch closer to adulthood, one of the biggest chances they may need to be prepared for is managing their personal finances. In most cases, teens have been financially dependent on their parents all their life, so the first step towards independence is an important one.
The best way for parents to deal with this situation is to expose their teens to money management practices at home at an early stage.
The following tips could get your teenager into the habit of not only managing money well but also appreciate its value.
Outline Your Home Expenses To Your Teen
Starting from the kitchen provisions to your home appliances, educate your kid about how much essentials cost and how to allocate money towards them. At this early stage, you don’t need to detail out every little cost; you’d rather focus on getting them to identify the values of things that make life convenient and comfortable.
This way, when your teen steps out of the home to start an independent life, he/she will at least have a heads up of how to set up a functional home.
Teach Your Teen How To Cook
Every individual that aspires to be independent should know at least the basics of cooking. The activity is no longer a task for just the women, it’s viewed as more of a required skill set that will come in handy for sure. Inculcating habits such as cooking while help your teen be more financially responsible when it comes to food. Let’s say he or she is going away for a couple of years to a university town and goes on to discover that the canteen food is quite bad. In situations like this, if your teen doesn’t know how to cook, his or her dependency will entirely rest on eating out, which is not great for long-term health as well as finances.
Additional Reading: 7 Tips For Teenagers To Make Money
DIY Skills Go A Long Way
Thanks to the technology available today, we can avail services from professionals for just about any repairs. Though this is a great thing, it can make our future generation complacent and more dependent on paid professionals to service every little inconvenience. To avoid this from getting out of hand, you can teach your teen a few Do-It-Yourself tasks that will not only make him or her self-sufficient but also save money or repairs.
Introduce Your Teen To The World Of Credit
Early knowledge about Credit Cards and Personal Loans can really help your teenager not only build a strong credit portfolio in the future but also know what to do and what not.
Additional Reading: Tips To Prep Teens For Better Finance Habits In The Future
Help Your Teen Absorb The Habit Of Savings
Go up to a handful of adults and you’ll at least hear one or two of them saying “I wish I had gotten used to saving money when I was young. It’s so hard now!”
Habits can be cultivated easily at a young age rather than later on, so you could start early. Even if it’s a silly piggy bank, it’s still worth the effort, because you surely want to see your teen make smart investments and plan savings for the future, right?
Additional Reading: 4 Things Every Teenage Student Should Know About Personal Finance
The last tip is probably the most important one….
Teach Your Teen How To Differentiate Between Wants and Needs
“I really want that video game!”
“I need formal shoes for my internship.”
Needs and wants; these two factors will always play a role in our purchasing decisions, irrespective of whether we’re young or old. That’s why clarity helps here. If you’re able to teach your teen how to prioritise purchases, consider your job done.
The point here is not that your teen must be deprived of or must deprive himself or herself of fun and entertainment, of course, leisure time is also important. It’s just that your teen should be able to take a call on what purchase qualifies as a necessity and what doesn’t.