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Are Your Kids Savings Savvy?

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This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.

I have to admit that I haven’t done as well teaching my daughter Amanda (age 9) about money as I would like. When I heard about Kids $ave software, I thought it could solve a lot of my problems.

Problem 1: I always forget to give Amanda her allowance on a regular basis. When she wants to buy something, since I know that I haven’t enabled her to save on her own, I usually just end up handing over some cash (as an advance or payment in arrears), which doesn’t teach her anything about the true value of a dollar.

Problem 2: When I do give Amanda her allowance, she will spend it at the first opportunity. Two dollars buys you junk worth two dollars, which again is not really conveying the message about her money that I would like.

Problem 3: Even if Amanda does decide to save up for a much-wanted big-ticket item, it seems out of reach so her resolve soon fails and she’s back to buying junk.

The program is easy to download from www.kidnexions.com. You can try it out free for 35 days. Anytime during the trial, you can purchase a key, which allows you permanent access to the program. You can set up different accounts for various family members. Each child can customize his or her own screen.

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How did Kid $ave work at solving my problems? Quite well actually.

Problem 1–SOLVED: I can set it up to pay Amanda on a weekly basis. I can also add in bonuses, which I like, because I do financially reward her for taking care of her brother or doing extra chores around the house.

Problem 2–SOLVED: Cash just screams out, “Spend me!” Seeing a balance in her account is something that she enjoys. This makes it operate truly like a bank account, which really does teach her how money works. If we are out, and she wants to spend some of her money, I can give her the funds and then debit her account online.

Problem 3–SOLVED: Last year I did open a savings account for Amanda (you can rectify real bank balances with the amount online as well). She has decided that she would like to buy a trumpet next year when she is allowed to join orchestra at her school. Having a goal has made her much less frivolous with her money. This is one of the best features of this program. She can play around with the time and see how long it will take her to reach her goal. She has had a lot of fun with this, even seeing how much she will have in ten years.

Go ahead and download the program today and try it out. One of our readers will win a license key so that they can download the full version. Just leave a comment and we’ll draw a winner on January 31.

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137 Comments

  1. So nice to see this discussion. If the current times show us anything, it’s the importance of raising financially savvy kids that are in the position to ward off money problems in the future.

    Another good product is http://www.fiftyp.com. They offer free memberships, there is nothing to download and in addition to learning about saving, spending and investing, they also stress sharing. Kids can become socially conscious while learning to manage money if fun ways. Its fun for the kids too and easy for parent. The kicker is that the company donates 50% of it’s own money to charity and lets the kids decide how the money is donated to the charities. Try it out at http://www.fiftyp.com

    Reply

  16. I wish I had this years ago. My daughter is 18 and knows nothing about money- she is very stubborn to teach anything to. This would be perfect.

    Reply

  33. Hi, I love the idea of this giveaway. I think I need it more than my children! Please enter me in your contest. I appreciate it…..Thanks,Cindi

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  47. DEFINATELY sign me up! I would love to do this with my children…a girl age 9 and a boy age 7 who thinks that at every store he should get something because he has been “good”. That’s what I get for bribing!!!

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  49. My 10 year old can make a penny scream ~ on the other hand, my 14 and 17 year old just make me scream!!! I would love to have this to teach them a couple of lessons!!

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  50. WOW! I had no idea something like this even existed! I’m excited to try it out. I think it will work because they can actually “SEE” their progress right in front of them. Brilliant!!

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  55. Wow. What a great concept. One of my sons loves to buy the junk and the other will save. Both love to use the computer so what a fun way to teach them to save. Adults can use it too right??

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  60. This sounds a fantastic lesson in financial planning, and I believe the earlier, the better. I wish there had been something like this for me before I went out on my own.

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  67. I have already been named “Bank of Mom” as I hold all the money for my daughter, however it would be great to allow her access to her savings to see what she can save for or how much she’s willing to spend on “frivolous” things rather than what she really wants.

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  68. I have four sons at home. This would be great as they only have one computer to share. I have a kitchen timer I set for one hour each., each day.

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  69. This would be PERFECT, because we too forget to give our boys allowances regularly! I would very much like to win this!

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  79. Great idea! How else can we teach them when we are just handing them over money or buying what they want. Responsibility feels good to a kid too!

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  80. OOH! I bought my niece one of those electronic ATM machines that keeps track of your savings but this is way cooler.

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  86. Wow! What a way to start our kids off right by teaching them to be financially responsible before we actually send them out on their own!

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  87. I’ve been using Quicken for many years, and have been trying to design a similiar program for my kids. This software will solve my problem.

    Thanks for the update. I’m going to pass it on to the homeschooling community.

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  102. What a fantastic program! I was never taught savings by my parents nor was my husband by his. So we’ve struggled to figure it out on our own and are now struggling as to how to teach our kids. This sounds like an amazing solution!! Good luck to me and to everyone else entered! It’d be nice to win the key, but I’ll probably purchase one 🙂 LOL.

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  108. Definitely going to try this out–we have been trying to figure out how to deal with this since we have all three of those problems.

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  113. This is an awesome thing! with all the people that are in so much debt because they never learned to handle money this is a way to teach the future generation money skills.

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  118. My mother did a wonderful job teaching me to be savy with my money. I think this would be a fantatic new and hip way to help my children become savy with their money.

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  128. What a great idea! I’ve got one SPENDER, and one saver, and Sophia’s just too young to know yet! I think this would help, thanks for entering me!

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  132. I have been focused on trying to teach my boys the value of money as well. It is difficult when kids have everything they need and almost everything they want. I would love to have this software to help us raise money savey kids.

    I am going to download the demo version now!

    Reply