Teaching Kids About Money, the Fun Way

Teaching children about money and financial responsibility is the job of parents, and it’s a lesson that will reward your kids for a lifetime. The best way to teach children about money, being organized, and good financial planning is by example, and once your kids are old enough to understand what money is, there is no reason not to include them in some aspects of your family organization of finances, and find ways to incorporate their financial education into it.

Doughmain is an online tool to help you do this. A site that is a family organizer and chore and allowance tracker, Doughmain is also an educational tool that teaches children about earning money, saving money, planning how to spend money, and much more. Doughmain has features that bring families together by including everyone with family organizer tools such as:

a Family Calendar, which can be synched with other platforms such as Google Outlook, and allows your family to smoothly coordinate their schedule (my favorite feature, since my husband is always asking what we have going on and I’m the social planner- so it’s not just for the kids!). This can be managed via a smartphone, incorporates important dates, school events, and more, and is even color-coded to make it easy to find each family member’s events and appointments. You (the parent) can decide who has access to edit the Family Calendar, and have the option of having reminders emailed to family members so no one forgets important events (this is a great tool for keeping everyone on the same page!)

an Online Chore Tracker, which helps keep track of what needs to be done around the house, assign chores, and even integrate the allowance tool and reward tool. Children can check off chores as they are done, and parents can easily access and update the Online Chore Tracker with their smart phone. My son is already old enough for us to use this in some respect (he can’t read, but he does some of the chores, and I can check them off as he does them), and considering how internet-savvy today’s kids are, I can see this being a great way for parents to communicate with their children and organize weekly chores

an Allowance Tool that helps children keep track of completed chores, and allows parents to reward completion of chores and other accomplishments for the child to see. The allowance tool can be personalized for each child and the chore/reward notifications emailed to each child, which not only reminds them to keep on top of their chores, but encourages them to continue to do so

The Family Chore Tracker is such a great tool for coordinating what needs to be done and when, I created one to show you how it works (I already added Alex to the list even though he is too young for chores, but Little Man has chores that are appropriate for his age, such as brushing his teeth and putting his toys away, and they are color-coded in blue for him):

Doughmain.com also offers games to teach children financial responsibility. TheFunVault.com is aimed at kids 5+ and teaches them about money basics. SandDollarCity.com is a virtual world that allows multiple older children (8-12) to play together to manage a family candy shop, and IRuleMoney.com is a financial responsibility game focused on teaching teenagers about significant financial lessons through 30 second videos about various financial things, from jobs and car loans to credit cards and credit score. It’s a good way to make learning about money and financial planning a bit more interactive and fun for kids, spark an interest in learning, and help parents to more easily navigate the introduction of different aspects of money, saving, spending and earning to their children.

In addition to all these great features, there is an additional incentive to try out Doughmain’s free services: signup at doughmain.com (using “dough” as the reference code) for a chance to win a $500 Visa gift card! The winner will be displayed on their blog.