Teaching Kids About Money with Give, Save, & Spend Banks

Spend, Save, & Give Banks.

As parents we are always trying to teach our children important skills for life.  When it comes to teaching our children about money, the best lessons come from your home.  Teaching your children money skills is a valuable Life Skill.  One they’ll be able to take from now into their future.

Spend, Save, & Give

There are three main things you can do with money:  Spend, Save, and Give.

Spend:  We allow our children to spend their money on just about anything they want.  We have asked them to pay have on a few things (yearbooks, chorus trips to amusement parks, etc).  It helps them set aside their money and make some short term goals.

Save:  We treat this like long-term savings.  In fact, whatever our children save and put into the “real” bank, we double their deposit.  Every few months I hear, “Mom, I’m going to be depositing $50 in the bank because I’ve already saved up $25.”  I don’t think this is the traditional way to do the “save” portion of this lesson, but this is how we’ve always had them use this money.

Give:  We allow them to give to whomever or whatever they want because it is important to choose where you give your money.  Sometimes it’s Christmas or Birthday presents for our Compassion International children, goats from World Vision, a fundraiser at their school, or into the offering at church.  They are able to find that there is joy in giving.

We talk about money frequently in our home.

We talk about money frequently in our home.  “If you continue to purchase candy, you’ll have less money to put towards the LEGO set you want.”  We discuss how much money it takes to pay for our dog’s vet bills, saving money and using coupons, budgeting for a birthday, or saving money for a vacation.  Money is not a taboo subject.  We’ve found that openly discussing our finances with our children allows them to have a reasonable outlook on money.  We even listen to the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover audio together in the car.  He is funny, we have great discussion, and learn something too.

When our children were really little, we encouraged earning through pom-pom balls.  Gradually we worked up to real money with the Spend, Save, & Give Banks.  We’ve used these Pringles can banks or a version of them for over 5 years (directions below).

Spend, Save, & Give Bank Supplies:

• 3 cans of Pringles or Crystal Light containers (per child)
• Contact Paper (click here)
• Black Electrical Tape (optional)
• Stickers (alphabet)
• Theme Stickers (like Star Wars)
• sharp knife or scissors

Simple Directions for Spend, Save, & Give Banks:

1. Eat 3 cans of Pringles (try to share them with your family), rinse, and dry.
2. Cover the cans with contact paper.  The kind without a pattern is very forgiving.
3. Wrap the containers together with electrical tape and/or wrap the edges of the can.  I chose to pull the cans together so that one wouldn’t get lost.  This is completely optional.  We did learn the hard way that only 1 lid can be off at one time.
4. Use the alphabet stickers to add:  Give, Save, Spend to the containers.  I also wrote it on the top with a permanent marker.
5. Carefully cut a coin hole in the top. (see below)
6. Let your child decorate it with their favorite stickers!

Have older kids?  It’s not too late to teach your teen about money, click here.