Smart Money Smart Kids - Raising Money-Smart KidsSample

Day 05: Worth the Effort (Saving)

"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." (Hebrews 12:11 NIV)

We live in a culture of instant gratification. We don't want to wait for anything, and the speed of technology just keeps feeding our we-want-it-now attitudes.

After all, everything we need is a click away. We can check the weather, make a dinner reservation, order a pair of shoes, and send a picture to a friend all while we're walking into work. We can have almost anything we want, any time we want, whether or not we have the money to pay for it.

And this is the culture our kids are growing up in!

That's why teaching kids to save is so important. Think of it this way: You tend to be a lot more cautious when you actually save up and pay cash for something. When we hand over that money, we feel the transaction. It's like giving up a little piece of ourselves because we've invested so much into earning and saving.

That's what we want our kids to experience. By developing self-discipline and committing to delay gratification, our kids can slow down. They can learn that it's okay to spend money as long as they spend wisely.

Of course, discipline never comes easy. The writer of Hebrews admitted that self-discipline never feels pleasant. In fact, it can be really painful at times. But the payoff, "a harvest of righteousness and peace," makes it all worthwhile.

That's a great lesson for kids to learn early in life. Challenging your kids to save up for big purchases, and giving them the chance to see you do the same, reinforces valuable lessons in patience and goal setting. Encouraging them to build an emergency fund reminds them to prepare for the future and squashes feelings of entitlement.

Teaching your children how and why to save is one of the most fundamental lessons for raising money-smart kids. I can't think of a better way to set them up for lifelong success than simply teaching them how to save money.

Delaying gratification can be hard. It takes discipline, and it never just happens overnight. It's a process, but it's definitely worth the effort.