When it comes to day-to-day lessons, the best way to teach your kids the value of a dollar is to give them actual dollars. Use cash with your kids. When my daughter was 13, she wanted to go shopping with friends for back-to-school clothes. The other parents gave their girls a credit or debit card and imposed a spending limit. Me? I embarrassed my daughter by handing her $50…in cash. The reason: I knew that when she got to the checkout line with more than $50 worth of merchandise, she’d have to make hard choices and put something back.
Cash tells kids that money is finite, unlike plastic. A famous study out of MIT showed that people will spend twice as much money on the same item when they pay with credit cards instead of cash. While plastic can seem like play money, cash feels all too real.