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Teach Your Child About Money – Free Savings Chart for Kids

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Free Savings Chart for Kids

One of the most wonderful gifts you can give your children is a healthy understanding of money. Not a craving for it or an assumption that it will lead to happiness. Instead, you have the privilege – the responsibility – to teach children about hard work, the power of saving, the dangers of debt, and the gift of giving. To help your children learn, we’ll also set you up with a free savings chart for kids.

How to Teach Your Child About Saving Money

Many people are in crisis mode, financially. It’s impossible to know what they learned or didn’t learn about money at home, but would America look different if more parents taught their children the principles I listed above? What if more parents led by example by communicating together about a budget, saying no more often to frivolous spending, and showing their children how to save up and pay cash instead of using credit cards?

It’s purely my speculation, but I’d go so far as to say we’d have less stress, less divorce, fewer addictions, more giving, and greater job satisfaction. Do you agree?

With the right steps, we can teach our children to live differently.

What About Student Loan Debt?

Free Savings Chart for Kids

Photo by Alexis Brown on Unsplash

You’re probably thinking, “What about student loans? I was just trying to further my education and now I’m overwhelmed by debt as a result.” Totally valid point. I remember approaching high school graduation and hearing everyone discuss their reasons for choosing one school over another. NOT ONCE did my friends and I stew over the debt load we’d receive from student loans. None of us saw what was coming.

In fact, according to StudentLoanHero.com, outstanding student loan debt reached more than $1.64 trillion in 2020.

How can we teach our children to save money in the face of such a burden of debt?

Start the Conversations

A great way to educate your young tribe about the dos and don’ts of spending is to create an open line of communication. Encourage them to ask questions. Show them the process of paying for your groceries or a meal at a restaurant. Take them to the bank and show them how you make a savings deposit.

Also, a conversation is a great way to tackle topics like:

  • Work ethic
  • Getting a job
  • Planning for the future
  • Saving for a major purchase
  • Saving for college (tell them about the ways you are saving for their college while they’re young)
  • Integrity
  • Greed
  • Envy
  • Contentment
  • Generosity

You don’t have to run down this list every night at the dinner table, but the more conversations you do have about these topics, the more seeds your planting in your child’s mind. You’re teaching her how to think about money, not what to think.

Put Them to Work

Free Savings Chart for Kids

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

We’ve covered the important step of talking about money. Next, it’s time to apply what your child has learned. If he’s old enough to hold a broom or to straighten up his room, your child is old enough to get paid for chores.

It’s important that he knows the money isn’t just for spending. Saving is a difficult concept for young minds, at first, unless they have something for which they’re saving. For example, if your daughter sees a Belle doll in the toy aisle and begs for you to buy it, you have some choices. You can purchase the doll, you can discuss the cost and why it’s not in the budget, or you can write down the dollar amount on a paper, head home, and help her calculate how many chores it’d take to save for the doll.

To aid in that endeavor, here are some free tools you can use with your child.

Free Savings Chart for Kids – and Other Great Savings Tools

Printable Savings Chart for Kids – via CouponsAreGreat.net

Downloadable “Share, Save, Spend” Chart for Kids – via iMom.com

Printable Savings Thermometer Chart – via Frugal-Mama.com

52-Week Money Challenge for Kids

Printable Play Money for Kids

Final Thoughts

Combine a free savings chart for kids with some great conversations and hard work around the house.  You’ll be setting the stage for great financial decisions, which will hopefully follow your children into adulthood!

Got some tips for teaching children to save money? Share one below!

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Teach Them Young: 3 Key Tips to Help Your Child Learn about Money

Free Printable Kids Money for Download

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Getting ready to teach your children or students how to interact with money? That’s fantastic! Not only will this building block help them learn mathematics like counting by fives and tens, but it will also prepare them for the workplace. Let’s take a look at a variety of free printable kids money available on the Web and ways to teach kids about money.

play money for kids

Free Printable Kids Money for Download

Monopoly Money

One of the most recognizable currencies for children (or at least this 90s kid) is the brightly colored money from the Hasbro game, Monopoly. These bills differ from U.S. currency in appearance but offer your children a chance to practice their counting, sorting, and hand-eye coordination skills.

Download your free printable Monopoly money here.

U.S. Coins

Are your children ready to learn coin values? Making change? Let’s take a look at some printable coin sheets for you:

Customized printable sheets of play money – At StemSheets.com, you can customize the number and denomination of play coins you need on each sheet. For example, you can print off 20 coins of each value (up to a quarter) on a single piece of paper. That’s 80 coins – in color – on one sheet.

Printable coins and coloring pages – Head over to EnchantedLearning.com to view printable images of quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. Also, view a myriad of coloring pages for your child to enjoy as they educate her about U.S. coins.

Printable coin math worksheets – Ready to test your child’s knowledge of counting and making change? These free worksheets are great tools for just that.

Bonus Read: “6 Fun Money Games for Kids“

U.S. Dollars

Got a bank teller in the making? Help your children or students identify the correct face on each piece of currency and count them in quantities of fives, tens, twenties, or even hundreds with these options:

Fake Play Bills – Looking for fake $1, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100 bills for your kids? Here is a complete list of free and printable play bills. These can engage your young child in a myriad of money lessons like counting, sorting, and even practicing good habits like using the envelope system.

Realistic Bills – Add a Face – A great way to quiz your child on whose face belongs to which bill is to show him this realistic play money with no face in the middle. After printing out these bills by denomination, he can color in his own face for some added fun. No worries. It’s only a federal crime to deface U.S. currency when it’s not play money. 😉

Games and Play to Teach Kids About Money

In the preschool years, kids are just beginning to learn that money has value and can be used to buy goods.  In early elementary, they learn to distinguish between the various bills and coins and their value.  You can help your child become money smart at an early age by playing money games with them.  Consider some of the following:

Buying Groceries

Print, cut, and laminate these terrific flash cards to quiz your child on prices at the grocery store. For example, she can use her fake money to pay for a $2 bag of popcorn or $1 bottle of water or do the math to pay for them both.

As your child gets older and masters this play game, you can take her with you to the grocery store.  Give her a certain amount of money and ask her to buy a few select things from your list.  This is a great time to teach her the difference between name brand and unbranded goods and the price difference between them.

Going to a Restaurant

Free Printable Kids Money

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Take advantage of your child’s love of play to play a game of restaurant.  Present children with a menu using one of these realistic free menu downloads.  Then, let your child choose his food, pay for the meal, and leave a tip.  This is an excellent time to talk about budgeting and staying within a budget when dining out.  Don’t forget to let your child switch roles and practice being the waiter.

Using Printable Play Checks

Is your child old enough to write? Then he’s old enough to learn how to write a check. Paper checks may seem archaic in today’s digital world, but it’s still a foundational skill from which your child will build his financial knowledge upon.

For example, give him a set list of chores to complete, then pay with a check using these free printable checks. Teach him how to understand the information on the check, endorse it properly on the back, and cash it. This will help him understand the role banks and employers will play in his life later, even if his paychecks are directly deposited.

Practicing Estimation

Another fun activity is helping your children practice estimation.  Fill a glass jar with coins, and let your kids guess how much money is in there.  The person with the closest estimate wins a small prize.

Collecting Change

Another idea is to save all your coins in a jar as a family.  Decide together what you’ll use the money for.  Maybe you’ll use it for a fun day out or for a donation to a charity you all agree on.

Teaching about Interest

For older elementary kids, teach them how interest works.  They can deposit money with you for their savings, and every month you can give them interest, at a rate you’ve determined, on their savings.  Your kids will likely be excited by this “free” money they’ve earned and want to save even more.

Final Thoughts

We all want our kids to be savvy when it comes to saving and spending.  Those skills should start being developed early, when kids are three to ten, through printable money and games with the kids.  The earlier you can start them understanding the value of money, the longer you have to teach them how to use money responsibly.

Bonus Read: “How to Teach a Child to Count Money“

Got any favorite ways to teach kids about money? We’d love to hear about them in the comments below!

Read More

Parenting Win: Teaching Money Skills to Your Kids,

Games That Teach Kids About Money,

Free Apps that Help Kids Manage Their Pocket Money

Rock Painting Ideas for Kids

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In our area, we’ve had the pleasure of stumbling upon a painted rock more than once, to the delight of whichever one of my kids finds it.  In fact, our city has its own Facebook page where people can share the rocks they’ve found around town as well as the rocks they have painted and placed around town.  There are over 13,000 members in the Facebook group!  If your family would like to get in on this fun hobby for kids, there are many easy rock painting ideas for kids.

Painted Rock Ideas for Kids

Rock Painting Ideas for Kids

If you’re looking at rock painting ideas, I’d encourage you to first see if your town has a Facebook group.  You can simply search the name of your town and rock painting; if there’s a group, you’ll find it that way.

However, Facebook rock painting groups can be a bit intimidating because there tend to be so many fabulous artists there.  If you or your kids’ skills are a bit more elementary, I’ve found YouTube to be a good place to search.

Ideas for Those 10 and Younger

To get kids excited about rock painting, try to pick designs that are easy enough for young kids.  The best ones seem to be designs that involve painting the entire rock as something like a ladybug or a strawberry, for instance.

There are so many tutorials on YouTube that will spark your children’s creativity!

For younger kids, Missy Maker has a tutorial showing kids how to make rock ladybugs, and giving examples of rock painting bees, minions, Shrek, and Nemo.

Ideas for Tweens and Teens

For older kids, rock painting can be an even more engrossing hobby.  Once kids’ artistic talents are a bit more developed, there are so many designs to pursue.

Tweens and teen can start using more advanced supplies like acrylic paint markers for more fine-detailed work like outlining and writing phrases on the rocks.

If your teen is a beginner, this video explains the whole rock painting process as well as designs for tweens and teens.

Rock Painting Ideas for the Whole Family

If you have children of varying ages and abilities, you can use a YouTube video like this one.

This video doesn’t show specifically how to paint the rocks, but it gives ideas for many different designs for all types of abilities.  I also enjoy tutorials with painting ideas for every season and holiday!  My kids who are 10 and under love painting simple flowers.

Final Thoughts

Rock painting can be a fun, low-cost hobby for everyone in the family, especially when you take the time to hide the rocks around your city.  It’s even more fun when you join a Facebook group and look to see if anyone has found your hidden rocks.  This hobby is also easy to start using some of these fun rock painting ideas for kids.

Our Favorite Games to Teach Children Geography

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One of my favorite ways to sneak in extra education with my kids is to play games with them.  Kids seems to just absorb knowledge this way because they’re having fun.  I’ve shared some of our favorite geography games previously, but I’d like to share a few more of our favorite games to teach children geography.

Our Favorite Games to Teach Children Geography

Online Games

Kids will easily learn to play online geography games.  Here are two that are highly recommended.

Sheppard Software

Our Favorite Games to Teach Children Geography

One of our favorite resources for learning geography is Sheppard Software.  Kids can learn the states of the United States or learn the countries of other continents.  My kids love this and play without complaint.  As soon as one of my daughters is done with the geography portion, she goes over to the Brain Games portion.

This site is a great resource as they also have history, animal, science, and health games, plus more.

Stack the States

We’ve not personally used this game because we don’t have an Apple device.  However, if you do, I’ve heard fabulous things about the app Stack the States.  This game teaches state capitals, shapes, geographic locations, and flags, to name a few.  Even better, it’s recommended for ages 4+, so it’s a fun way to help early elementary students learn their geography.

Board Games

10 Days in. . .Games

These games are perfect for family game night.  There are several versions of this game including 10 Days in the USA and 10 Days in Europe.  Players draw 10 cards.  The objective is to make a 10 card trail to your destination.  To make the trail, for instance, in 10 Days in the USA, you must either have a string of 10 cards that show a path through 10 states that connect, or you have a plane trip between to states that don’t touch.

Unfortunately, these games are a bit hard to find now.  You can find them on eBay and Amazon, but for now, production on new games doesn’t seem to be happening.

Explore the 50 States

This game is good for ages 7+.  Players spin a spinner and either land on the icon for a question card, flag card, travel card, or you choose.  If you get a question card, you can choose between answering a geography or history question.  The flag cards have three different questions.  You move forward once for each question you answer; if you can answer all three, you move forward three spaces.  The travel cards give fun facts about a state or attractions in that state.  Some make you do something before you move forward or some make you move back.

We find this to be a fun game to learn all sorts of things about the United States, from history, geography, trivia, and state flags.

Final Thoughts

Your kids are always learning, not just when they’re in school.  We find our favorite games to teach children about geography are a great way to have fun as a family and learn more together.  Luckily, there are many games available to help teach or reinforce knowledge for a variety of subjects.

Best Games to Teach Elementary Students Geography

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For many of us, we learned geography in school through memorization.  We memorized capitals, populations, physical geography.  Oh, the tedium.  While I liked geography, learning it in school took all of the joy out of it.  However, it doesn’t have to be that way.  You can bring geography to life for your student by cooking food eaten in that country and playing games.

Games to Teach Elementary Students Geography

Best Games to Teach Elementary Students Geography

There are so many fun games to teach kids about geography!

The Professor Noggins Series

Games to Teach Elementary Students Geography

If you’re looking for a quick and educational game, try the various Professor Noggins games.  Popular geography titles include Wonders of the World, Countries of the World, Countries of the World II, and Geography of the United States.

These games are good for ages 7+.  To play the game, roll the dice.  Then, the next player will read you the question.  You can choose between student or scholar.  A student question might read, “The peninsula of Cape Cod juts into which ocean?”, while a scholar question will ask a more difficult question like, “Guadalupe Mountains National Park is located in which state?”  When you’ve gone through the entire deck, whoever has the most cards (correct answers) wins.  Because of the two different levels, this game is great for multiple ages.  I enjoy playing these games with my kids, especially because I usually learn something, too!

The Scrambled States of America

Games to Teach Elementary Students Geography

In this fun game, each player is given a U.S. map and five state cards.  Then, you read a playing card such as, “Capital starts with A or B.”  The player then looks at their five-state cards to see if they have a card that fits the criteria.  If they have one, they put that card aside and pick a new one.  The winner is the person who has the most state cards when the pile runs out.

I enjoy The Scrambled States of America because there are two options to play.  You can either race (the first person to answer correctly wins the round), or each player can answer and all the players that have it right win that round.  The latter version is perfect for younger kids or kids who have dyslexia and take more time to read.  The former is perfect for competitive older kids.

Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride is often a long game.  Plan on playing for an hour or so, but it also makes a fun family game.  Players choose three cards that represent trips across America.  They can choose to keep all of the cards, only two, or only one.  If they complete the trip, they get the number of points on the card.  If they don’t complete the trip, the points on the card are deducted from their score.  The winner is the person who has the most points at the end.

Players learn where the states are as well as what the major cities are through regular play.  Our family really enjoys this game.

Final Thoughts

These are just three of the best games to teach elementary students geography.  There are many others available.  With so many fun resources, why settle for boring lessons?  Make learning geography fun instead!

 

Meal Planning For A Family On A Budget

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Meal Planning For A Family On A Budget
Meal planning is the holy grail of the kitchen. The most organized of moms have weekly meal plans prepped somewhere between chaperoning their kids to a myriad of extracurricular activities. You can’t help but wonder how they do it? How do they meal plan for a family on a budget.

But every time you try to pull a meal plan together, it seems more expensive than when you wing it. You’re on a budget, so you need to stick to a reasonable cost per meal, and you’d like some leftovers for lunches. You know there has to be a better way.

Five Tips to Help You Meal Plan For A Family On A Budget

1. Start By Cleaning Out Your Fridge

Before you start your meal plan for the week, open up your fridge, freezer, and pantry. Notice what leftovers you have and plan a meal based on those items. You’ll probably find you have all or most of the ingredients you need for an entire meal. 

This process kills three birds with one stone. One, it allows you to clean out your fridge. Two, you’re less wasteful of the food you’ve purchased. And three, you can save on your weekly grocery shopping. It’s a win-win-win.

2. Rotating Menu of Quick Meals

Make a list of 4 or 5 meals that your family likes and that can be made super quick. For example, every member of my family will eat pizza, anytime, anywhere. As such, there are always 4 or 5 frozen pizzas in our freezer. Other quick and easy dinners include spaghetti and meatballs, grilled cheese and tomato soup, chicken alfredo, and cheeseburger casserole.

Once you have your list complete, always make sure you have the ingredients for these meals on hand. The best practice is to buy them in bulk when they go on sale. Rotate one or two of these meals into your meal plan for the week for an easy, budget-friendly option you know your family will eat.

3. Change Your Life Chicken

The first time I read about Change Your Life Chicken from Kendra Scott of The Lazy Genius – I didn’t think I’d like it. But it seemed so simple that I decided I’d give it a shot. And guess what? I not only liked it, but I loved it.  It’s now a staple on the rotating meal plan in my house.

It’s inexpensive because it uses chicken thighs, it’s easy to make, super simple to clean up, and uses up any leftover vegetables in the fridge. Another good thing about it is the ability to change it up based on what your family likes, or to add variety from what you had last week.

Check out the recipe here and incorporate a version of Change Your Life Chicken into your meal plan once a week. It’ll change your life!

4. Breakfast for Dinner

Who doesn’t love pancakes and bacon for dinner? Breakfast for dinner is a great budget-friendly meal to incorporate into your meal plan once a week. It’s also a good meal for your kids to help out with. They can mix the pancake batter, or whisk the eggs for omelets.

I typically make breakfast for dinner on Sunday nights. We always nap after church so don’t like to eat a heavy meal in the evening.  Breakfast for dinner is is a fun, light meal to whip up together as a family and close out the weekend with.

5. Purchase Budget Meal Plans

If you’re not a creative cook and struggle to pull meal ideas together, consider buying one. Meal plans for sale are are crafted with intention. They pull together similar ingredients so are often budget-friendly and the cost is typically minimal because they’re prepared by seasoned experts.

Some of my favorite meal plans are $5 dinners, MyFreezEasy, and Momables. If you’re interested in taking an online course, I highly recommend Erin Chase’s Grocery Budget Makeover.  I personally took this class and was able to immediately apply some of the concepts to my budget. (contains affiliate links)

Do you have any tips for planning your meals on a budget? Share them in the comments below.

Read More:

The Importance of Family Dinner and How to Bring Back This Tradition

My Favorite Resources to Use When Cooking For My Family

Good Eating As A Parent Is Easier Than You Think

Fun Ways to Mark the End of Summer Vacation

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Summer is ending and school is beginning. Some kids have already started school. There is still time to celebrate the end of summer. Some people use Labor Day weekend as their end, but you do it when it feels right. I like to do it before school is back in session, that is before Labor Day here. There are all sorts of things to do to prepare for the weather changes. Here are some of my favorite ways to celebrate.

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Can You Be Held Liable For Your Children’s Negligence?

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Having children is certainly a big change in any parent’s life. Clearly, new parents will have to undertake a lot more responsibilities. On thing that most parents don’t always consider is whether they can be held liable for their children’s negligent actions that harm other people.

From a parent’s perspective, he or she may believe that a child could be too young to be responsible for these kinds of mistakes. On the other hand, people that are injured from an unintentional or intentional child’s act will want to be compensated for any injuries that they may incur. The ultimate question becomes whether you, as a parent, can be held liable for your child’s actions that can harm other people.

Tort Law

Tort law is a field of law that includes intentional and unintentional acts that harm a person. Torts include intentional torts such as assault, battery, trespass, etc., as well as unintentional torts such as negligence. Negligence occurs when a person breaches a duty that he or she owes to another person and that person is injured (AKA damaged) by that breach.

Children have not had the time, growth, and brain development to understand what is right or wrong and whether their actions can risk harming someone else. While adults have a duty to behave as a reasonably prudent person to foreseeable victims, a child is held to a less burdensome standard of care. A child’s standard of care is that of a child of similar age, education, intelligence, and experience. If children fall below that standard and cause harm or damage to someone, intentional or not, they may be held liable.

Courts have typically held that children under seven cannot be negligent. From ages seven to fourteen, there is a rebuttable presumption that they cannot be negligent. As for children between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one, there is a rebuttable presumption that the child can be negligent.

Children commonly don’t have jobs or assets to pay for their lapse in judgment when they are liable, however. Parents can understandably worry whether they can be financially responsible for the harm that their children create and have to pay out of their own pockets. Usually, a parent will be financially responsible for the acts of their children that harm others, but some states have limited damage amounts. Regardless, being a parent means you obtain parental liability for your child’s actions.

Negligent Supervision

Although children can personally be negligent, parents can also be held liable for negligent supervision of a child. As a parent, you have legal responsibility for your child, so you have an additional duty to supervise him or her to make sure they don’t harm another person. Therefore, even when your child is negligent, you could also be liable for negligently supervising your child. This of course, varies from the state you live in but this additional responsibility can often be asserted in personal injury cases.

To avoid being required to pay for your children’s mistakes, you should always supervise them as well as you can. Children can be difficult to predict, but you have a duty to try to prevent foreseeable harms and dangers to other people. Failing to supervise them properly could lead to being held liable for negligent supervision in addition to having to pay for your child’s tort(s).

Free and Cheap Things to do This Summer

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cheap things to do this summer

Day camps are a summer staple, but sometimes our household needs more.  I found myself low on finances for one year, and I couldn’t even plan for a summer vacation. I had to do some quick digging around for free and nearly free things my kids could do so that they had some fun experiences without breaking the bank. Here are some free and cheap things to do this summer with the kids. [Read more…]

Unique Mother’s Day Activities for Celebrating Mom

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unique mother's day activities

Mother’s Day is around the corner, and if you have been celebrating a few years, you might be stuck on what to do this year.  Breakfast in bed, lunch out, and spa days are wonderful and are a bit too common to use every year. Rather than sticking to a boring routine, here are some ideas for unique Mother’s Day activities that I have used over the years.

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