What I Made Wednesday {Money Jars for Kids: A Financial Lesson}

If you think about it we only do three things with our money: we spend some (so easy), we save some (so hard), and we give some away (sometimes easy, sometimes hard, but you walk away feeling good about it either way). And the earlier you learn this economic concept, the more financially sound you will probably be as an adult. So let's do our kids a favor and have them make these Money Jars this week. You'll have to determine what sizes you want each jar to represent based on your family's values on money. Kids are visual creatures so if you want them to save more than they spend, then make the SAVE! jar the biggest one in the group. For our own project we made the SAVE! jar a smidge bigger than the SPEND! jar and the GIVE! jar was the smallest (not because we're not charitable, but we can't afford to give as equally as we spend or save). By doing this project you'll be teaching your kids a valuable lesson. Whenever I have extra change I hand it over to my son and he appropriates the change in each jar as he sees fit. Again, the visualization of the size of the jars helps kids grasp the concept when allocating the change to the various jars (the largest jar should get the largest portion, etc. etc.).

What You'll Need
Paint
Paintbrushes
Alphabet stickers
Plastic jars (The ones I used are from Target and housed trail mix and dried fruit and come in many sizes. Look in the snack aisle. When we were done eating the munchies, I saved the plastic jars for this project.)
Dremmel Tool for cutting a slit into the plastic lids of the jar


What You'll Do
Have your child paint the outside of the plastic jars with their choice of paint colors. When dry take the alphabet stickers and spell out GIVE!, SAVE!, and SPEND! and stick on to each jar on the sizes you want represented for each.

Throw away the paper slip found inside the lid of the jar. Carefully take a Dremmel Tool to cut in slits atop the lids. Screw the lids back on to the jar.


What You'll Need to Know to Finish
Be sure to place all three jars together in an area where your kiddos can reach easily. Because the paint conceals the money inside it's always a surprise when we open it up at the end of the year and add it all up. The money in SAVE! goes straight into my son's bank account. The money in SPEND! is for my son to do with as he pleases. And finally, the GIVE! money is the best part because my son gets to pick any charity he wants to help - his decision to make.

There's a lot of lessons to be learned here and we upcycled our plastic jars all at the same time!


When do you think is the best age to start teaching our kids about economics and money?