Saving for the future not only benefits your family financially—it also lets you be a financial role model for your children. Parents who plan expenses and savings instill the importance of these practices in their kids. In addition to being smart with your money, there are other ways you can teach a child the value of a dollar.

• Introduce the idea of money and how it’s used as soon as your child is intellectually ready.¹ For example, you might let your child money handle and show them how bills and coins represent dollars and cents.²
• Depending on your family’s budget, give your child an allowance. This can be done at age six or seven. An allowance should not be payment for doing chores around the home. Instead, an allowance is a way for a child to start managing his or her own expenses and gives him or her practice with living within a budget.¹
• Demonstrate to your child how you plan and manage expenses for the family. For example, you can include your child when you balance your check book or pay your monthly bills.¹

You can also be a financial role model by taking the Florida Saves Pledge and setting goals for you and your family’s future!

1. Donna Davis, Teaching Children about Money, FAR9002, Gainesville: University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, 2012, https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fm034
2. Josephine Turner, Nayda I. Torres, and Vervil Mitchell, Children and Money, FCS7016, Gainesville: University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, 2014, https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/he160

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