teaching kids to save money

Whether you give your child an allowance or not is up to you, however, teaching them to save money is very important because if they don’t learn to save while they are young it will set them up for a lot of heartache later in their life.  Here is a fun project that you can do together that will help them get excited about saving!

You will need:

Here’s what you’ll need to make your own:  a small child-size shoebox, 3 empty baby food jars, paint, a knife (a box cutter would be even better) and some letter stickers.

1.  Paint the outside of the shoebox (or you can wrap it in paper–painting was easier with the type of box we had).  We used tempera paint and it took a couple coats.  Let the paint dry.

2.  Paint the inside.  Let it dry.

3.  Arrange the baby food jars inside the box.  Mine fit perfectly inside, but if you have some extra room, add a little bit of sticky tack to the bottom of each jar so it will stay in place.  Label the jars as well so that when you open the box, your child will know where the money is intended to go.

4.  Put three equal-sized pieces of tape on the top of the box.

5.  Using a knife, cut right on the edge of each piece of tape.

6.  Add your stickers and you’re done!

This great idea was taken from I Can Teach My Child