30 Top Money Parenting Tips For 30 Days Of Financial Literacy Month

“A fool and his money are soon partying.” ~Steven Wright

That always cracks me up.

But, financial literacy is no joke. Even if National Financial Literacy Month does kick off on April Fool’s day every year.

We don’t want our kids to be money dunces. And we probably don’t want them partying with their money either.

To help you steer your kids clear of those money pratfalls, I’ve scanned the analytics over at my family finance tips blog and picked out the top 30 by all-time traffic.

Here they are grouped by 5 categories: earning, spending, saving, giving, and investing.

How To Make Kiddie Microloans With Automatic Parent Payback - Plus Interest!

So your kid wants to buy something special in a moderate price range, but doesn’t have the funds to cover it yet.

The preferred parental response? Wait until you’ve saved enough! You know, delayed gratification and all that.

But occasionally, you’re OK with floating a small short term loan. That is, as long as it’s formally tracked and repaid.

In fact, you’ll even charge a little “Bank of Mom/Dad” loan interest on top. That drives the point home that borrowing money isn’t free. It also discourages a cavalier attitude toward loans in the future.

Good learning opportunity. Good plan.

Maybe.

How To Set Up A Digital Envelope Budgeting System With Prepaid Cards

The envelope system is a tried and true budgeting approach for families who use cash. Here it is in a nutshell:

1. Label a physical envelope for each household budget category.
2. Allocate cash each pay cycle between the envelopes according to your budgeted amounts.
3. Make payments for a spending category using only the cash remaining in the corresponding envelope.

Nice and simple.

Unfortunately, the cash envelope system is also tedious and impractical in today’s digital world.

Why?

How To Use Your Prepaid Card With PayPal

If your prepaid card has account and routing numbers that support ACH transfers (like FamZoo cards do), you can link it to PayPal just like a typical bank checking account.

Why is that useful? You can:

How to Approve Chore Earnings Before Handing Over The Cash

If you’re like most parents, you’re way too busy to be approving every little chore your kid checks off in real time. That’s why we’ve taken a trust-but-verify (and hold-accountable) approach with our chore checklists.

Your kid can check items off and earn rewards without your intervention. That’s the trust part.

You can get notifications when your kid checks items off — either through checklist alerts or card activity alerts. That’s the verify part. If Junior is a little too quick on the trigger finger, you can un-check an item, and it will reverse the award.

You can also let Junior know there will be repercussions for checking off items inappropriately. Maybe reduced screen time, a deposit to the family swear jar, or a financial timeout. That’s the accountability part.

But what if Junior is also quick on the trigger finger when it comes to spending ill-gotten rewards as soon as they hit the card? We’re talking real money here, and the horse has already left the barn. That’s a problem.

Here’s a nice middle ground solution that maintains convenience for parents while eliminating temptation for kids.