Find Alyson's Help at BMO SmartSteps For Parents

Growing up, I always had an allowance. In order to get that allowance, my brothers and I had to submit a budget for approval.  Here is one of my earliest. 50 cents a "mouth" (sic) for savings.  Nice goin' Alyson! 

As a parenting expert, I get lots of questions about kids and money:

    When should I start allowance?  

    Should it be tied to chores?  

    My parents gave my daughter $100 for her     birthday. That's too much! Can I force her     to put it in savings?

There is a vast amount our children will have to know about saving, spending, budgeting, learning concepts around value, learning altruism, compound interest, online transactions, how to read a bankstatement, how to use a debit card, borrowing with interest, and more.  How do you teach it all?

Well, I'm thrilled to announce that all you have to do is follow me over to a newly launched site created by Bank Of Montreal. I am one of the experts working with BMO to create the BMO SmartSteps for Parents site just for parents like you! I will be blogging, answering your questions, helping BMO pick the best activities to help kids learn financial literacy and show you webisodes of how others families are managing these lessons too.  Here's a little taste of what we're all about.  See you there!  www.BMO.com/smartparents 

Comments

[Jessica]

To give the kids (age 6 and 3) a sense of using their own money, I recently played "store" with them at home. We put stickers with prices on a few items we had around the house, and I gave each child $5 to "spend".

It was a great way to review some basic math, and introduce them to some of the choices they can make with money: for example, buy one expensive item or two less-expensive items. Or, if they put their money together, they could buy the most expensive item and share it.

[Alyson Schafer]

Jessica,

I love that idea. Thanks for posting it. I know parents at my site will benefit - but so will all the parents checkin' in at the BMO SmartSteps for Parents site. Would you be willing to share this idea again over there? It's such a great idea others could benefit from.

Thanks!
Alyson