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Budgeting is an essential life skill. Understanding how to manage the money you earn can help you accumulate wealth. However, great money management skills start in childhood. Teaching your kids how to budget is easier when you have the tools. It’s clear that teaching your kids about money is important, but how do you make budgeting for kids easy to understand?
After all, there is a lot at stake here. Great money habits lead to higher savings, less debt, and the ability to make better financial decisions overall.
Let’s talk about how technology can help you teach your kids how to budget.
In this article, we discuss:
- Budgeting for Kids 101
- Why digital wallets are great for kids
- Empower your kids with good money skills
- How to use Moola to help instill great money habits
Budgeting for Kids 101
The key financial literacy skills children need to learn are: understanding the value of money, how to keep it safe, and how to control your spending. There are a lot of technology solutions to help you teach children how to budget. From low-fi tactile methods like the envelope method to an app like Moola, there are many ways to encourage good money habits in your children. Each method has its drawbacks but understanding your options is important.
Teaching the value of money with budgeting
Kids learn the value of money in a variety of ways. Paying for goods with cash involves all of our senses which trigger emotional responses. This is why some experts advocate that children learn the value of money using either the envelope method or the jar method.
These methods require money to be withdrawn and stored in envelopes or jars based on how they plan to be spent (or saved). These methods involve physically tracking your money. It is a popular approach for children because they can see and touch their money so learn to understand its value. However, this method has one major drawback – that kids are prone to losing things. But, also, if you have siblings in the house who happen to be less diligent, then money can go missing and fights can start.
Helping kids develop good money habits
Good money habits can take a lifetime to develop and rely on nurturing skills in saving, as well as skills in spending. Starting at budgeting with kids means you need to make it easy to allocate money to different expenses in a way they can understand.
Managing kids spending
For many reasons, it can be easiest to manage your kid’s spending using their phones. After all, they always have it with them. Moola is an eGift Card app that can be installed on either Android or Apple phones and used as a digital version of the envelope budgeting method. In other words, it can be used to allocate money to certain brands to act as a control mechanism whilst also enabling a degree of freedom and choice. That’s why Moola is a really useful tool to help teach your kids about budgeting and managing money. It’s secure and simple.
Supporting your kids saving
There are many ways to help your children save their money. There are some great apps for this purpose, but the best solution depends on your child’s savings goal. Not to mention, whether you’d like to teach them about investing or the power of compound interest.
Keeping kids money safe
Physical money can be easy to lose and hard to keep safe. That’s why converting it to a form of digital currency that’s easy to use but protected in your child’s phone is a great solution. Digital wallets are a lot more secure than carrying around cash or plastic in your wallet. Moola helps keep kids safe because their money is protected by the app and your child’s phone security. It gives your children the financial freedom they desire while making sure their money isn’t going to fall out of their pocket or be stolen by a playground bully.
Moola uses 2-factor identification and requires a unique passcode so you can rest assured that your child’s money is safe and secure.
Reasons why digital wallets are great for kids
Create digital barriers to spending to reinforce skills
We used to think that we needed to see money to understand its value. However, during Covid, so many retailers have elected to not take cash so we all have had to adapt. This has increased the push to digital currency in the form of prepaid cards, Apple/Google Pay, or other digital solutions. The traditional envelope budget method for children can create more problems than it solves, especially in this context. So, creating digital barriers to spending by using gift cards can help support your child learning money habits.
Teach your kids about shopping smarter
Moola is Canada’s favorite money-saving app. By buying discounted eGift Cards and using them to pay, you can help your child find clever ways to spend their money wiser. Moola also tracks your savings from the app’s main menu. Because it’s a payment method, Moola gift cards can be used together with other merchant sales to stack savings. Now that’s a smarter way to shop!
Help kids learn more about security
Budgeting for kids is essential. But digital security is also a vital skill for young children to learn. Just because you can’t touch digital currency doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Understanding how to keep your money safe online is a vitally important skill for this new digital age. As long as they can keep track of their phone, then they’ll always have their Moola Wallet right at their fingertips.
Hot tip: Make sure you register their Moola account. That way even if something does happen to that smartphone, they’ll be able to access their Moola account on any device so their money is not lost.
Keep your kids safer
Are you sure a bully taking their money at school? Giving your child cash or your credit card to go to the store can make them targets of thieves. With an app like Moola, you can see exactly where your child’s money is going and make sure it’s secure. With some merchants, you can even check the balances. So you can rest easy knowing their money is being spent by them, and they’ll enjoy the freedom of getting to explore their favorite stores.
Send them cash remotely in an emergency
Moola users love the ability to send gift cards to others directly from the app. With the gifting feature, you can send gift cards to your child’s Moola account with a few taps on your phone. This is great you can send your child a gift card directly to their Moola Wallet almost instantly.
Moola has over 200 shops, services, and restaurants on the marketplace including gas, groceries, restaurants, ride-sharing services like Uber, and more. You can even buy them at a discount to help you stretch your money further.
Want to learn more about how to gift an eGift Card using Moola? Check out our FAQ!
Empower Your Kids with money
Your kids want freedom with their money, and you want to support them as much as you can. Using an app like Moola can teach your kids valuable budgeting lessons by helping them see exactly how much they’re spending and what they’re spending their money all while giving them some choice.
They’ll need to make a plan for their expenditure and stick to it. Because when that money runs out, it’s gone.
If they want to save up for a bigger purchase, they can store their gift cards in their Moola Wallet. They can easily see how much money they’re accumulating over time, and they can learn a valuable lesson about how to save for the things they want.
These lessons are essential to becoming responsible and financially independent adults.
How to Manage Your Kid’s Money with Moola
Ready to start budgeting for kids? Here’s how to make Moola work for you and your family.
1. Download Moola from your app store
Download Moola on your’s and your child’s smartphones today from Google Play or the App Store.
Once you download Moola, it’s a great idea to familiarize yourself with the app before you show your child. Alternatively, check it out together! The app has a lot of features to help you save more money by taking advantage of deals on gift cards. the digital wallet, the Moola Marketplace, gifting, check balance, store finder, and more. Here’s a quick video to familiarize yourself with how to use the app – it may be helpful to watch this one together.
2. Find the deals on eGift Cards you want
Browse through the gift card categories and decide what gift cards you’ll buy for your child. It can be a good idea to choose a gift card from each category, such as one for food, one for clothes, and one for something fun like the movies or video games.
Allowing your child in on this process will make them feel more empowered on where they get to spend their money, while still only choosing stores that you’re comfortable with. This way you’ll know exactly where your child’s money is going, and whether or not that’s appropriate for them.
3. Send the Gift Cards
Once you decide on the eGift Card you’ll buy, it’s easy to buy the gift cards on your account and send them to your child’s Moola Wallet. Make sure you select “send a gift” during checkout. All you’ll need to do is the email address attached to your child’s account. The card will be delivered directly to your child’s Moola Wallet complete with a special surprise animation.
You can also buy the card on their account instead (i.e. use your payment information directly on your child’s Moola account). It’s up to you which way you choose.
That’s it for the lesson on budgeting for kids! The gift cards are now ready for your child to use online or in-store.
4. Continue Their Money Education
Moola is a convenient and versatile budgeting tool for both parents and kids. But, much like cash, it does require continued education for how to manage that money.
It may take them some time to get things right, but that’s what this journey is all about!
Budgeting for Kids is Easier with Moola
Give your kids the opportunity to learn and grow with Moola. It can be a valuable tool to learn how to make better decisions around money – lessons that can last a lifetime.
