4 Fun Ways to Start the Conversation
Many adults feel uncomfortable talking about money, not only with children but also with partners, friends and family. If you are not talking to your child about money, they will learn from another source, be that advertisers, social media influencers or friends with a limited education.
Talking about money openly and often will not only help shake off the awkwardness and teach children the financial confidence, skills and habits they need, but is also an opportunity to share family values, goals and beliefs.
These activities can help make talking about money feel more natural and fun.
Play the Needs and Wants Game
First, explain NEEDS as things we cannot live without like water, food, shelter, clothes and shoes. Explain WANTS as things we can live without but are fun to have like sugary drinks, McDonalds, branded shoes, toys, the latest phone or ice cream.
How to Play:
- Invite everyone (including the adults) to go to their rooms and get an item they think is a want. Initiate a conversation by asking why they think it’s a want.
- As a group, walk around the house pointing to needs. Use this opportunity to find items that may be thought of as needs but are wants. Talk about how different people can have different needs and wants, and sometimes one person’s need can be another person’s want and visa versa.
- Finally, chat about something you really want and how you are planning to save up enough money so you can buy it. Ask everyone about something they want and talk about how they could get the money to buy it. This is an opportunity to talk about different ways to earn money, saving up to buy wants as well as setting and tracking saving goals.
The game can lead into conversations about the family budget and how the family spends their money on needs first and wants second. This will help them understand why you don’t buy them everything they want when you go shopping. Other conversations could start with questions like:
- How much do you think we spend on electricity?
- Is electricity a need or a want? Why?
- What do you think would happen if we didn’t pay our electricity bill?
- Do you know how much our Wi-Fi costs?
- Where do you think our family’s money comes from?
- Can you guess how much money we spent on snacks last month?
- How many hours do we have to work to be able to pay for our next holiday?
Use Common Events to talk About Budgeting and Saving
An easy way to open up conversation about budgeting and saving is by using common events in life, such as birthday celebrations, gift buying, purchasing a new car or even planning a holiday. These conversations won’t only be about dollars and cents, but also about planning, problem solving, allocation, needs, wants and even negotiating.
Together, create a budget for the event, involving them in all aspects of allocating monetary values to categories, like food, decorations and venue. As they get older, give your children more responsibility for specific items in the budget like drinks, entertainment or food. Show them how to comparative shop and find ways to save money. To make it more interesting for them, allow them to keep any leftover money.
Ask questions like:
- Do you think it will cost more or less money to have the party at home or at a venue?
- Will it be cheaper to buy pizzas or make them at home?
- Would you rather have more decorations and less friends at your party or the other way around?
- Do you think we can find a special deal on a website like Grab One?
- Help them work out the cost per head for different options.
Play Challenge the Ad
Helping children become more aware and mindful of how advertising works will help them make more informed, unemotional financial choices in the future.
How to Play
- Gather everyone either in front of the TV, the home computer or go for a trip to the mall. While you watch or notice adverts, ask questions like:
- Do you think an ad has ever made you want to buy something?
- What do you think this ad is trying to sell? Do we need it? Do we want it?
- Do you think the people in the ad use the product they are advertising?
- Do you think the people in the ad are being paid to say good things about the product they are selling or do they genuinely love the product?
- I wonder if the item they are selling is good quality.
A fun way to end the session is to design your own adverts. Come up with a product to sell and have a simple brief, including things like:
- Who are we trying to sell this to (target audience)?
- Is our target audience mostly on social media or in the malls?
- What other things do they love doing that we could use to make them want to buy our product?
- What words can we use to make them feel they just have to have it?
Car Chats
As you are driving children around, use your surroundings to have casual, fun chats about money.
Ask questions like:
- Do you think the people who live in that house own it or rent it?
- Do you want to own a house one day?
- What kind of house do you want to own?
- How much do you think that house (point to houses as you drive past) costs?
- Is everyone who lives in a big house wealthy?
- How much do you think those police get paid?
- How much money do you want to earn one day?
- How much do you think that car costs?
- Do you think it cost more or less than our car?
- Who do you think pays to collect the rubbish from the park?
- How does money get into the auto bank?
- How does a bank make its money?
- Has the price of petrol gone up or down?
- I wonder where that big delivery truck is going and what it’s carrying?
- What are they advertising on that billboard?
- How much do you think they paid for that ad?
- Would that ad make you want to buy that?
- If you could sell something, what would it be and how much would it cost to make?
The more opportunities children get to talk openly and honestly about money, the better they will get at managing money and making educated and informed financial choices. Keep conversations short, to the point and most importantly – have fun!