Should Parents Control Their Kids’ Money?
I don’t remember having much money as a kid. Aside from the tooth fairy and a few $5 bills I got for birthdays, income was pretty low. As a teenager, I got a part time job as soon as I could. I spent MY money on clothes, cassette tapes (yeah, I’m old), and all sorts of crap I’m sure I “needed” (a $30 Hypercolor t-shirt and some cool Ray Bans come to mind). My parents never gave me rules on what I could and could not buy (except for the obvious illegal things). If I earned it, I could spend it. It seemed like a good deal at the time, but now that I’m a Mom, I wonder if parents should control their kids’ money.
How Much Money Should Kids Have?
My parents or in-laws never did allowances, so Jim and I aren’t really into that. We think it’s not unreasonable for a kid to keep their stuff neat and be able to do some basic chores appropriate for their age without getting paid for it. If our daughter does something extra helpful or wants to sell her toys at a yard sale or consignment, she gets money for that. She also does pretty well on birthdays and holidays. Apparently the going rate for the tooth fairy and monetary gifts has gone up since I was a child, because recently we counted her money. She had over $200!
When she was a baby and had no clue, I took any money she got and put it in her college fund. Hopefully she will thank me someday. Now, she is old enough to know when someone gives her a gift and wants to have a say in where it goes, which is usually in the piggy bank. I don’t think it’s good to let a 7 year old keep that much in a piece of plastic that could easily be stolen by Barbie or a Princess doll at any given time.
We took her to the bank and opened a savings account. It doesn’t earn much interest, but I think it’s a good lesson to see the balance and how it’s affected if she wants to take money out. Then I started wondering if maybe we should have invested this in stocks. Is that overkill?
Should Kids Have Investment Accounts?
Our daughter does actually have a Roth IRA. My brilliant accountant suggested we set one up as a way to save on taxes when I owned my practice. Normally, a kid has to be 7 years old before you can hire them for things like filing and copying, but he said we could give her job as a model for advertising purposes, so we did. She now has over $11,000 in retirement savings at the ripe old age of 7.
Now, if we absolutely needed the money, we could take out the contributions without penalty. That’s why Roths are so appealing. I won’t say this money is absolutely hers until she is an adult. She has no idea about it, and we won’t ever let her think it’s there for anything other than retirement. If she runs off to join the circus at age 16, we will keep that money or use it to pay for my psychiatrist bills!
As far as money that my kid earns when she is old enough to get a real job, I believe I will make her put half into her Roth. I think we will also have a portion set aside for charity. The rest she can keep or save as she wants. Hopefully, this will create good habits that last to adulthood. I don’t blame my parents for not making me save, but if I’d learned the value of a dollar early, it might have saved us from all this catch up work that we’re doing right now.
What do you think? Should parents have a say in how their kids spend money? What’s the dumbest thing you bought as a kid?
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I would love to know how to be smart with my money. (I’m 12)
Keep reading blogs, invest early, and spend less than you make. You can’t go wrong that way!
I am a kid myself, and I like to know about m own money, thank you very much. I respect money, and I know how to make a buck or two. If you’re a parent out there, take it from a kid, don’t control your kids money (or life) completely.
From an early age we taught my nephew the importance of automatically saving a portion of his gifts. After a holiday he normally makes a trip to the bank with his grandma to make a deposit. He has learned the importance of also purchasing something for himself from the money. We don’t want him to be a money hoarder because he needs to understand you do more than save money. Now that he is a teenager we encouraged him to open his first brokerage account. I love that you started a Roth IRA for your daughter. I hope to do the same for my daughter in the future.
My answer is no. As parents, our role is just guide and give advice to our children. The word control has a bad connotation, like force.. What I just do personally is ask them their experiences and problems in handling money. Then, I give them tips and words of encouragement. It really helps them to save more.
My very first post was about my first financial lesson that my mom let me go through. I wanted $150 nike basketball shoes. She asked me over and over again if I was sure, but let me go through with it as a teenager. I spent all my money and come to find out I wasn’t a better basketball player. That was a huge lesson early in life and helped me see that advertising and marketing gets you to spend on things that you don’t really need. What would have happened if my mom stopped me and I never learned that lesson? I would have likely learned it later on by maxing out on a house or something else. Instead I learned to live a life without debt. Thanks mom for letting me fail and learn a lesson!
I think letting kids fail is sometimes a better lesson than always telling them the right things to do. I think you remember those lessons better.
I think letting kids fail is sometimes a better lesson than always telling them the right things to do. I think you remember those lessons better.
Love the idea of opening a Roth for your child. Parents should have a big say when it comes to their kids’ money but ultimately the child should make the choices. Better to mess up with money as a kid then later in life I suppose.
At least lessons learned as a child have fewer consequences. As an adult, you can get into a really big hole really fast if you have no idea how to manage money.
We are huge fans of letting our kids manage their own money, within some basic boundaries we set for them. First, we have certain chores they have to do simply because they are a part of the family. Kinda like how I make dinner every night and don’t get paid for it. 🙂 Then we have other extra stuff that we will hire them for, stuff that normally wouldn’t need to be done. We do this to teach them A) that sometimes we just “do” because it needs to be done, and B) that if you want money you have to work for it. Then we have our 80/10/10 rule: 10% to savings, 10% to a giving account, and 80% to spend as they wish. We feel this has instilled good money management habits into them, and yet gives them freedom to learn to manage money and make money management mistakes while they’re still under our roof. Hopefully, this will set some good habits in place for them when they’re adults. Hopefully. 🙂
Even if they veer off course, at least they will have the background to fix things. I have found several frugal parents recently who practice this same philosophy of “These are the ways we fund our necessary expenses and these are the ways we fund extras. If you want extras, you need to work for them.” I think it’s a great way to set them up for life.
I think it’s important for parents to have an impact and influence on their children’s finances. I mean think about it, would your daughter – or anyone’s kid – ever think to save for retirement or put their money in a retirement account? I don’t think so.
Nope, I bought video games and crap as a kid and didn’t know what a retirement account was. Even if I had, that concept was so far away, I’d have probably ignored it.