Kids Learning the Value of Money

This summer has gone by way to fast. In just a few days, school starts back up for my two girls. I can’t believe it. This summer, I wanted to teach my kids ages 6 and 7, the value of money and what it costs to buy items they want.

The girls have been collecting money in their piggy banks since they have been little. They receive money from friends and family for special holidays including their birthday. They also get money for losing their teeth, good grades, reading books and chores.

I decided to take them to the bank to open their own savings account. At most banks it is free for kids to open a savings account and they don’t have to keep a minimum in the account.

We brought their coins and dollars to the bank. The bank tellers were very nice in making sure the girls were involved in the process of opening the accounts and depositing their money.

Well, within a few days of opening the accounts, the girls wanted to take their money out of the bank to buy a big ticket item. 

They both wanted to get an iPod touch 4^th generation. They had wanted an iPod touch for quite some time. Their cousins had them so they knew what the iPods could do.

One reason they wanted the iPod 4 was to make movies with the Littlest Pet Shop Collectables. There is a fantastic free app you can download to make movies.  The other reason was they wanted to call each other on Face Time. Face Time is a free app that does video calls to other iPods or iPhones for free. Incredible if you ask me. The nice thing about iPods is you don’t pay any service fees once you buy it. So you can talk and text for free. The only drawback is you have to be where there is wireless internet service or Wi-Fi.  

We have rules on the iPods because as you can imagine kids would be on the iPods all the time. There is so much an iPod can do. You can have email, watch movies, play games, text, search and do just about anything. My daughters know they have to ask for any apps they want amd they have to ask to use Face Time to talk to their cousins. We limit the time of being on the device to two hours a day and they need to be off and turned in to me by seven at night. The girls are also very careful with their iPods because they paid for them. (I did pay for insurance on the iPods because I know how easy it is for the screen to crack. Big tip, make sure you get the insurance for a cracked screen. Walmart offers insurance for $17 and covers the cracked screen. Target is the same price for insurance, but doesn’t include a cracked screen.) I think after this summer the girls are learning a little bit more about the value of money.