What are you gifting to your kids this children’s day?

The other day my daughter was shouting on my son “You spend all your money that’s why you are not able to buy dress for Tom”.  I got curious I asked her what happened she gave me annoying face and said “Mamma why can’t he understand this simple thing that he need to save to buy what he wants. He spends all his money as soon as he earns it”.

Wow that was the Eureka moment for me.. interalia all the time waste, addiction and blab la bad things this phone games does, it is teaching my kiddos the lessons regarding money in its own way. This tom, a fictitious character as Cat on my phone (have not got them their own phone till now for being so called conventional mom) demands new thing everytime and kids have to buy it from the money they earn from the same online game only.

This brings me to the relevant topic of discussion of inculcating the financial prudence in our kids from an early age. It is good for them to understand the recipe of financial freedom

  • Earn money
  • Save money
  • Invest money

And once they have learnt this art believe me you don’t need to save for their future. Good habits should start early. and the habits we acquire as a child are there forever with us. Saving is a habit. Investing is a habit. A good habit.

Notice that somehow this little game on my phone was teaching to my daughter all the relevant lesson of investing like:

Earning money is difficult – they have to watch some advertisement to earn money/points.

The need to forgo short term whimsical spending to get their long term goal- they need to save it wanted to buy what they wanted (that expensive coat with hood for Tom ?).

While you may have your own way of teaching your kid one way I can suggest to have them understand that earning money is difficult is to connect their pocket money with the any household work that they do. And be strict and limited in that approach.

Saving is equally essential you can give them the target that they will sponsor their own birthday party. Get them to see the magic of saving.

Lastly and most importantly the saving. Get them open a bank account, let them handle their account, invest in short term Fixed deposit on their behalf and let them see the interest getting added to their account without them to do anything.

With this exercise you would have shown them the financial freedom. When your money works for you.

There is no age of learning new things however, young minds are most easy to teach. Ideally you may start teaching them at the age of 10. Give them little complete freedom regarding the small portion of their money. Run entire cycle with them I,e, EARN, SAVE and INVEST.

So this 14th November, give your kids an understanding of financial Freedom and give them the gift of lifetime.

 

CA. Sudha G. Bhushan
Sudha G. Bhushan is a qualified Chartered Accountant and a Company Secretary with more than a decade of experience in the Foreign Exchange Management Act, RBI, Transfer pricing and International taxation matters. She is an ardent speaker and author. She is Founder Director, Taxpert Professionals Private Limited, a multi-faceted consulting firm. She is author of following books: • Practical aspects of FDI in India published by Institute of Company secretaries of India • Due Diligence under Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 published by CCH. • Comprehensive Guide to Foreign Exchange Management in two volumes published by CCH. • Practitioner's Guide to Foreign Exchange Management published by CCH, a Walter Kluwers company. She is regular contributor journal and website of WIRC, ICAI published monthly.

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