5 Saving Tips For Kids

It’s important to gradually teach your kids about money and how and why saving is important from an early age. There are plenty of ways to make this fun and suitable for whatever age your kids are so they get into the habit before they leave home.

AtBeanstalk, as parents ourselves we’ve had some practice with teaching our kids and we’ve been speaking to other parents about saving for well over 10 years, so we know some tips and tricks that we’ve found successful.

Before we dive into those, we want to introduce ourselves. We’re Beanstalk, the revolutionary new app bringing children’s savings into the 21st Century. Launched by the same team behind KidStart, we’ve been helping parents save for over 12 years by enabling them to earn money back from over 2,300 retailers (including Kickers!) to top up their child’s savings account. Through the years of running KidStart, we realised there was a gap in the market for an app like Beanstalk that makes saving and investing simple and affordable for all families.

Here are our top tips:

1. Introducing money - we recommend introducing money to your kids at a young age. You can teach them how to count coins and notes and play shopkeeper games with them. When walking around shops you can ask them to guess at how much items will cost and to read the price labels. All of this will help them learn that things cost money which will lead into the importance of saving.
2. Saving ¼ - once your children get a bit older and you start to give them pocket money or they receive birthday cash or money for other special occasions, teach them to save ¼ of it and to put it in a piggy bank. Discuss what they could spend it on, maybe there’s a new game they want or something they want to do, so they have a goal in mind.
3. Celebrate successes - when they manage to reach their goal, celebrate it with them. They’ve done well to reach their target amount so let them know this, it makes saving more enjoyable.
4. Don’t bail them out too often - this can be harder said than done but if they blow their savings before buying the thing they were saving for don’t always cave in and buy them it anyway, especially as they get older. It’ll be part of learning how to save and manage their money.
5. Show them their savings account - if you have opened an account for them, talk to them about how you’re saving for them. Show them their savings and discuss what you’d like them to spend it on when they’re old enough, be it a first car, money towards a house or help for university. Our Beanstalk app is simple to use and easy to understand, making it a great tool to show your children.

We hope these tips have given you some ideas on how you can teach your kids about saving. You can find out more about Beanstalk here.

Please note: Capital at risk. As with any investment, the value can go down as well as up. Beanstalk is a trading name of KidStart Limited, authorised & regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (# 473606).