Festus Hangula
Money is very valuable. Money is just a medium for exchange of goods and services. It’s something that we have all agreed we will accept for the majority of things we sell, our labour and our property and possessions.
Financial Literacy is critical. Our children learn how to read and write in school but teaching them about money is on you; kids as young as three years old can understand the basic concepts of spending and saving.
When we grew up we were told that money doesn’t grow on trees, which literally means that is not easy to earn money. So, it is valuable and you have only limited amount of money. You should be careful how much money you spent. I am calling on parents to teach their kids about budgeting.
Spending and saving is very critical if our kids are taught about money as this will teach them how to value to encourage your kids to keep their allowance in their piggy banks instead of spending at least N$20 give them interest on what they’re saving.
Maximum of 5% should suffice, if you can afford it. Not only will this teach your children the concept of earning interests, but it will this teach your children the concept of earning interest, but it will encourage them to control their impulses to spend.
There are various ways and Activities to involve children on budgeting, spending and saving have shortterm savings container mighty have a picture of a trip to Disneyland.
Teach your children to set aside money for short- term and long-term and another container or envelope for spending on everyday items.
One very important way is to make a Savings Goal Chart once you know what you want to save for, figure out how many weeks it will take and make a chart. You can represent each week with a box and your child can put a sticker in that box once the money from that week’s allowance is set aside.
Once you instil such as culture in your children they will now understand and know when you say you don’t have money to buy things they will need other than going to the shop with them and ending up buying things or items you don’t need.
As your child grows older a saving chart will be less inspiring open a savings account for your child and help your children prioritize. Teaching your kids on how to save an important step to prepare them for financial responsibility and secure future.
Teach them while they are still young so they become financial literate as its one of the most important aspect this also protects them into going into debts and making right financial decision once they are adults. ‘’As important as it is to raise your kids to be good people, you should also raise them to be smart their money.’’
When your children grow older they will have fun with interest rate calculators they will know how much money they will earn if they save or invest a certain amount and grow at a particular rate.
Our commercial banks should also introduce educational kids programmes and saving incentives to educate our children and know the value of money.
* Festus can be reached on festushangula@yahoo.com