How to Make Your Kid a Money Saver (2024)

Today’s post is brought to you by MPMK’s newest sponsor, Upromise, a company dedicated to helping parents find small ways to do a really big thing- save for college!

If you’re not familiar with how the Upromise program works, here’s a quick 1-minute video to get you up to speed on how the things you already do every day, from shopping online to ordering pizza for movie night, can earn you money for your child’s college fund.

Check out the Upromise programtoday and then check out these tips from our contributor Janssen on other ways to help your kids become savers.

And! Right now, when you invite friends and family to join Upromise you can both earn $20!

We all want our children to grow up to be wise with their money, but little kids often are most interested in spending their coinsas fast as they earn them. If your children are anything like mine, the moment they see the candy aisle, they’re desperateto spend everything they’ve earned.

How do you turn a kid who just wants a lollipop (and right this minute, please) into a child who can save for bigger items like a big toy or bike and eventually for a car and college tuition?

Here are 6strategies to try:

Set both small and large savings goals

Saving for something as distant as college can be hard for an elementary-schooler to grasp. Try having multiple savings goals instead. Some can be long-term like a car or college tuition someday, and some can be smaller and shorter-term like a bike or a day at the local amusem*nt park.It’s so motivating to actually save for something and then be able to buy it and helps boost motivation to save for bigger and more long-term purchases.

Save together for big ticket items

It can be really overwhelming for a child to look at the cost of something like college tuition and wonder how they’ll ever be able to afford it. If you let them know you’re willing and wanting to help them make it possible, it’ll be a family project, rather than an impossible and stressful endeavor for a little kid.

You can match the money they save or sign up for an account with Upromiseand earn cash back on your regular purchases at more than 850 online retailers,10,000+ local and national restaurants, and partnerships with top travel and hotel sites.

All that cash can bedesignated into a college fund (or can be used now to repay existing student loans). Since the Upromise program launched, members have earned more than $900 million in cash-back (you could buy a lot of bikes with that!). Talk to them about how you’re contributing to their college fund and let them see the cash accumulating.

Make it visual

When children are just starting to get the hang of money and saving and spending, it’s really helpful to have a place where they can see their money growing. Try glass jars that let them see their cash accumulating inside. Another idea is to sit down together andmake a money earning goal sheet (similar to those used by charities) with a thermometer that you fill in as the kids save.

Keep small bills and coins on hand for paying allowance

If you’re paying your child allowance, get a huge stash of $1 bills and coins from the bank. There’s nothing more demoralizing than a big stack of IOUs for your child and bigger bills are hard for them to divide up into different categories.

In our house, we get about $20 worth of dimes so that we can pay out allowance for months at a time, and our daughter can use the dimes to easily allocate money into her spend, save, and share jars.

Let them pick things to save for or spend on

As a parent, you know that a gumball machine for their bedroom is probably not the best use of their hard-earned money, but if your child feels like the only thing you ever let them buy are useful or things you approve, they’ll probably just see savings as a chore.

Talk together about what they’d like to buy now and in the future and find a balance you can both be happy with – they’ll be much more willing to save for textbooks at the university if they also get to save for a new skateboard at the same time.

Model good money habits

Since money is kind of a taboo topic, odds are good your kidswon’t have many money models aside from you, so make sure you’re setting a good example.

You can talk about the things you’re saving for, whether it’s paying off your car or mortgage, a family vacation to Hawaii, or their college funds. And let them in on your ways of making your money work harder.

Do you eat at home more often to save money? Do you pick a credit card like theUpromiseMasterCard that can give you an additional 5%cash back on your regular purchases so that even when you’re buying milk, you’re saving for your child’s college fund? (Last year, cardholders earned more than $42 million in cash back.)

Do you invest the birthday money you get from a grandparent instead of buying a new toy? Let them see how you manage your money so they’ll have a good feel for how they might want to manage theirs.

How do you help your children save for the future, especially college, and what things have worked well for your family? We’d love to hear!

*This post is sponsored by Upromise, all opinions are 100% our own.

More from MPMK on Kids and Money Management

(bank labels pictured above)

8 Best Books for Raising Financially Responsible Kids

Establishing “Family Jobs” and “Money Jobs” at Home