Beyond Cash and Gift Cards: 4 Creative Financial Gifts for Kids

“Hey kid, here’s 20 bucks.”

“No thank you,” said no kid ever.

That’s right. No kid is going to hate you for handing over cold hard cash as a present this holiday season. The same holds for gift cards, as long as you get the brand right. That might be a little trickier than you think, judging by the billions of dollars worth of unused gift cards floating around out there.

And while cash and gift cards aren’t the most imaginative gifts, at least some folks get pretty darn creative on the packaging. Maybe you can even try your hand on some clever money origami this year.

Still, wouldn’t you feel a bit more thoughtful giving a financial gift that isn’t purely focused on immediate consumption? Perhaps something a bit longer term and, dare I say, educational?

I know what you’re thinking. Yawn. But bear with me, I’ve got some cool options that are worth your consideration.

29 Tips for Teaching Your Kids to Stack Benjamins from Joe, Tai, Len, and Bill

Your kids know how to stack blocks, but do they know how to stack bills? How about 100 dollar bills? You know, the “Benjamins.”

They will if you listen to last Friday’s episode of the popular personal finance podcast Stacking Benjamins. The host, Joe Saul-Sehy, invited me to join fellow panelists Len Penzo and Tai McNeely in a lively round-table discussion on teaching kids good money habits. Joe plucked a range of topics from three recent articles.

Here’s an outline of the discussion with the 29 key points and tips. Check out the timeline if you want to jump right to your favorite spots in the podcast:

6 Tips for Building the Charitable Giving Muscle with Your Kids

I have a shortlist of healthy habits I’d like to instill in my kids, and charitable giving is definitely on it. It’s right up there with a solid work ethic and regular exercise. In fact, charitable giving has a lot in common with exercise:

• Nobody else can do it for you.
• It can be tough to get started.
• You always feel good about it afterwards.

You might even argue that charitable giving is better than exercise because it makes other people feel good too.

So how can you motivate your child to get started with charitable giving and, ideally, turn it into a life-long habit? Here are six approaches that have worked well with our kids so far.