Helping 6yo understand the value of money

[RainDancer]

My 6 year old gets £5 a week for spends. I started giving her this because she was forever asking for stuff in shops and I was giving in too often. This way she knows if she wants something she has to buy it with her money. It has worked. However, the minute she gets her spends she is desperate to spend it! I want her to understand the value of money and the importance of saving, but hopefully also in a fun way. Anyone got any ideas?

Is there something more expensive she wants that you could work out together a payment plan to save up for?

We do a sticker chart. Think there's 10 Stickers on each row and each row is worth £2.50, come the weekend the £5 has been earned through little jobs like tidying room, being good on days out, washing hands after bathroom etc. That way she has to earn it and therefore it's more valuable. She has now started saving her rows of stickers and saved 4 weeks worth as she was only managing to get tacky crap with £5 so we explained the more money saved , the better the toy is . Maybe set a goal?

My son is 5 and we don’t yet do pocket money for this reason. I feel hed spend too much time thinking about what he wants to buy. Whereas just now he’s not very materialistic or grabby. Instead we have a rule he can have a kinder egg or magazine on a Saturday morning and that’s it except holidays or long journeys.

I think it's partly a maturity thing. Many 6 year olds live in the moment. Mine was exactly the same at 6 but now at 9 he saves every penny.

I used to let him make his own choices but gave my opinion. "Yes, you can buy that. However it's quite cheap so I don't think it'll last long" after he had quite a few cheap toys break he started to listen to my opinion and now if I say something is cheap, he generally doesn't buy it.

I would also often point out the better things he could have if he saved. "Oh you like X? Well you can have X if you save your money for 2 weeks". I started with items that were just out of reach so wouldn't take long to save for, then moved up to more expensive items.

Oh that's interesting Walrus. I'm worried I'm letting her become a complete spendthrift so glad to hear it may be age related. I had a bank account when I was probably about 9 and saved absolutely everything, but then we were skint and I definitely didn't get a lot of treats. I also like the idea of a sticker chart. Might give that a go.