I must say I wish my parents would have done this for me or that I actually sat my kids down when they were young and taught them about money. I think you did a great job in helping them understand it. I hear all the time that the reason so many people don’t do well with money is because they don’t understand it. we know how to spend it but we don’t know how to budget it or save it.

PF changes constantly; calculus remains the same. If I get a chance I’ll submit a reader to story to GRS about what I’m planning to teach in my PF course next year. More than anything, I try to teach the philosophy of smart money management, since I have no idea if the current mechanics of PF will have any relevance in their lives in 5 or 10 years.

One thing that I’ve found very helpful is to have my students read parts of books I’ve used in my own PF journey, and then have discussions about the material. You could certainly do this with your own kids at home. Some of my favorites are “Your Money or Your Life,” “The Millionaire Next Door,” and “The Complete Tightwad Gazette.” (More for the philosophy of PF rather than the current mechanics.)

Keep up the good work you parents who are showing your kids how to handle finances early on. My parents acted like it was something we’d just learn along the way, which is a bad strategy.

We can’t afford to give them alot in allowance so they feel the pressure of getting a job.They don’t ask too much for things out of their allowance unless a must have for school but I would like to see them save some of their allowance for a rainy day.

We have family meetings about finances along with other topics. It works great because they know we are honest with them and hopefully this will make them better adults one day.

When I went to college at 17, my grandfather handed me a credit card and said “If you need it, buy it.” As you can guess, this got kind of ridiculous… I was more responsible than most teenagers at that age, I think, but I had a funny idea about what school supplies were ‘necessary’. Worse, when I overspent, no one told me. I only found out third-hand my senior year of college /after/ he wrote me an email informing me that he wouldn’t be paying for any more of my expenses (with one semester left to go, no less) that he had been complaining behind my back to family members about my spending skills.

At the time, I felt mortified that I had been so irresponsible, but as an adult looking back on it, I am mortified that he made no effort whatsoever to make sure I was financially literate! Needless to say, I learned the lesson the hard way, but the experience drove a wedge between us that has never quite been overcome.

I never want to do that to my children, so I’m glad to see someone addressing the difficult question of how to raise financially literate kids!

Yes, I am strict. I don’t think I’m overbearing. I just want to clarify a couple of things because, after all, you can only fit a certain amount of info in an article. My kids are required to have a job, but sometimes this means that they are only working 6-8 hours per week. They both have good grades (the oldest is on the dean’s list in the honors college at her university and the youngest is on the merit roll in high school). Both excel in their extra curricular activities and both do volunteer hours. The only thing I see them missing in 6-8 hours/week is time on their Tumblr accounts or texting their friends.

The mandatory requirement also fits into our value system and works for our family. We just don’t feel that anyone really makes optimal decisions with money if it isn’t their money. I don’t ever think there is one way to parent or reach a goal. Just because it works for us doesn’t mean it’ll work for you. There have been a lot of great responses here about what works. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

As far as the “House Rules” go. There are many things on those rules that have nothing to do with finance- No males in the house when we’re not home, we will not tolerate underage drinking or drug use, etc. And the financial rules are there so they go in with their eyes wide open. We can be flexible with them if we choose to. We haven’t had to worry about it yet.

My mom also picked up extra hours (she’s a nurse) to pay for college. Of course, we had a grade caveat. My parents never had to invoke that, as we all worked hard, but she would not have paid for us to party through school. We also did have to get more scholarships each year to pay more for our portion.

Perhaps best, my parents made things transparent for us. They gave us all a credit card, and we sat down to look at bills with my mom. If we charged something on the card, we had to pay my mom, in cash, before the bill was due. None of us have ever gotten in CC debt. She also made us do the family grocery shopping, so we had to learn about sales and what to buy (it was a rough few weeks when we first started and realized we needed more than pretzels and fruit snacks).

I love how we were raised because we learned the value of money, but we also didn’t sacrifice what we wanted to do for money. My brothers and I have worked some low-wage jobs to follow our passions instead of going for a career. This is working out for us, and the frugal skills our parents showed us (sale shopping, thrift stores, garage sales, and even dumpster diving, and learning how to fix things) helped just as much as the fiscal management.

To me, the key is not *what* your parents teach you, per se. Like you said, each child is different and will respond to lessons in different ways. What is essential is that you do work with your children and try to teach them about financial responsibility in a way that feels right for you and them.

They’re both adults now and the oldest is married with kids and financially successful. The youngest is still trying to find herself and is living oversees for a year (on her own dime, working for accommodation and sometimes for cash while she travels). I suspect this year will teach her a lot more skills and open her eyes and maybe she’ll finally figure out what she’ll do for a living when she gets back.