I hate to say it, but I’ve made a ton of mistakes over the course of my life financially. I’ve been in debt and I’ve faced times where everything felt very hopeless to me. It took a lot of hard work for me to get out of debt and some lessons I just had to learn the hard way, because I was never really taught the true value of the dollar and other valuable life lessons when it came to money. I never gave much thought about living a frugal live, using cash instead of credit cards, opening a savings account, etc… I’ve decided since I’ve learned these things that I’m going to teach my children at an early age how important money is and how to save money, so that way they never fall into the same pitfalls that I have.

Do you want to teach your children how to save money? If so, here are some tips I’m going to give you that will help you teach your kids how to save money.

#1. Start as Early as Possible

It’s important that you start teaching your kids the importance of saving money at an early age. That way, it will stick with them as they grow older. We actually gave our daughter the same piggy bank that my husband had when he was a kid. It’s really cute and she appreciates it, because it was once her dad’s piggy bank. We told her that her dad would put his change in the piggy bank that he would get for being good and then he could take the change he saved to the store to buy a new toy. She also knows that the more money she has saved up the better toy she can get, so she doesn’t use the money in her piggy bank very often.

#2. Make Saving Money Important to Your Kids

I know that everyone out there isn’t going to have the same piggy bank they had when they were a kid. If not, you don’t have anything to worry about. Take your kid out and get them their very own piggy bank and explain to them that it’s their first piggy bank and it’s very special. Next, ask them what they would like to save money for and tell them how they can earn money. I tell my daughter that she can earn money for doing chores such as picking up her toys, making her own bed, helping clean up the kitchen, etc…

#3. Remind Them How Important Saving Money Is

Kids will get older and you have to remind them that saving money is just as important even when they’ve aged. Also, make sure they know that they have to work in order to earn the money they want. Just like when they were a child and had to pick up their toys for a quarter, so they could go out and buy a new toy, they can now babysit to earn more extravagant items like a cell phone, laptop, iPad, etc… This will help them have a good work ethic and they’ll also learn the value of money when they have to work for it.