Money, Money, Money

I’m entering today’s post in the Superkid Savers Competition, set by MoneySupermarket.com, which is all about how to instil good savings’ habits in your kids, in the hope that I might pick up some handy tips for myself. 🙂

According to Katharine Whitehorn, famous British journalist, writer and columnist, ‘The easiest way for your children to learn about money is for you not to have any.’

Makes sense to me; it’s not even a conscious decision for my husband and I to tell our children that they’ll have to wait for ‘extras’ until we’ve ‘saved up’ because it’s perfectly true, so they’re used to not being able to get everything they want immediately, except the necessities.

I think that most people share Errol Flynn’s view who said, ‘My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income’, so we try to compromise with our children; if we go to the cinema, they know they can EITHER have popcorn at the cinema (instead of sneaking in sweets – come on, you KNOW you do it, too) OR have McDonald’s afterwards (other fast food retailers are available).

They don’t get both because we try, where we can (and not always with success) to follow Thomas Jefferson’s advice of, ‘Never spend money before you have it’; I think if our children only followed one piece of advice, I’d want it to be this one, as it’s a simple principle but one that can stop you ever getting into debt.

It’s advice that my ninety year old Gran has always given me and which she’s always adhered to herself, although, according to Oscar Wilde, ‘Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.’  My Gran would SO NOT get on with Oscar Wilde.

Unfortunately, if you already have children, Billy Rose’s advice of, ‘Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs repairing’ is a bit of a moot point, but you could save money in the first place by following Beethoven’s advice of, ‘Recommend virtue to your children: it alone, not money, can make them happy.’  (Yes, I’m sure they’d love ‘virtue’ as their only present on Christmas day morning.  Was Beethoven wise or was he just a tight wad?  Answers on a postcard, please.)

There’s nothing to say that our kids won’t feel the same way as Spike Milligan who said, ‘All I ask is the chance to prove that money can’t make me happy.’  As long as it’s money the kids have earned themselves through hard graft and being savvy, I’d love them to be able to prove it, too.

Hopefully, by putting £20 a month into a Children’s Saver account for each of our children, it will give them enough of a leg up in their adult lives not to be asking the same question I have for the last fifteen years, ‘Why is there so much month left at the end of the money?’ (Anonymous).

We all want our children to understand the value of money, so we give the older two spending money for helping with jobs around the house and then they get to treat themselves because, ‘While money can’t buy you happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.’ (Groucho Marx).

We also encourage our seven year old to save for something he really wants instead of frittering money away as soon as he gets it (our three year old just wants a packet of 10p Haribos, so he’s easily pleased).

It might sound mean, but we won’t let him buy anything before he’s read the prices and considered what he can get with his money now, compared to what he could get if he waited and saved up for longer.  Like Will Smith says, ‘Too many people spend money they haven’t earned to buy things they don’t want to impress people they don’t like.’

According to Kin Hubbard (American cartoonist and journalist), ‘The safest way to double your money is to fold it and put it in your pocket’; yet we still chose to invest a small sum of money that we received shortly after the birth of each child into a shares account that they can’t access until they’re eighteen, as a low risk and alternative way of maximising their money.

Finally, whilst we would always want our children to be financially secure and careful with their cash, I believe they need to know how to keep it in perspective.  As Richard Friedman wisely says, ‘Money will buy you a fine dog, but only love can make it wag its tail.’ 🙂