Pass It On: Accounting Tips to Share With Kids

It’s never too early to helps kids understand accounting – the concepts of earning and spending. Here are a few ways to teach your little ones about how money works and even have a little fun.

Play Money Games

One way to explain the principles is by playing games like Monopoly and The Game of Life. However, if you want to be more homegrown and less commercial, bake some cookies, bag and price them, and turn your kitchen into a store. You might even get a toy cash register and calculators to make the whole experience more authentic. Then record the earnings, expenses and profits. This will really give children a “taste” of accounting!

Create a Family Budget

When sharing this activity with your kids, you don’t have to include every single expense – just those that they can easily understand, such as mortgage or rent, electricity, gas, phone, groceries and so on. Then, ask them to write up a budget of their own and include their income and expenditures for an allotted amount of time, perhaps a week. This way, you can demonstrate the importance of tracking money and explain that this is a common way that businesses and families deal with their finances.

Teach Them About Checking Accounts

Even though checks are being used less and less these days, a check register is still a good way to show kids how to reconcile expenses. First, you can let them watch you write a check, then explain how to record the check in the register. Then, get some generic deposit slips from your bank and demonstrate how deposits and withdrawals work. Finally, tell them that these transactions will be sent to them each month in a statement – you might even show them one you have to help them visualize the concept.

Explain Debits and Credits

Grab a blank sheet of paper and write a large T on it. Above the left side of the bar, write “Income: Money In” and above the right side of the bar, write “Expenses: Money Out.” Point out the difference between the two sides. If your child has an allowance, a way of earning money by doing chores or if they have a summer job, then ask them to pretend that they’re going to spend some of their money on things they’d like, such as games or candy. Have them record the amounts of earned income in the left column. Then ask them to imagine spending the money on the things they want and have them record those expenses in the right column. Then subtract the expenses from the income. This is quite effective because it helps kids see the money going in and out of an account. When they get a feel for how this works, they might be a little less interested in spending every cent they earn.

There are many other tools you can use to teach your children how money works, but these are a few good ones to get you started. As many parents can attest, helping kids comprehend how to manage money is one of the best lessons you can teach them.

Sources

https://www.sapling.com/12003624/accounting-activities-kids

These articles are intended to provide general resources for the tax and accounting needs of small businesses and individuals. Service2Client LLC is the author, but is not engaged in rendering specific legal, accounting, financial or professional advice. Service2Client LLC makes no representation that the recommendations of Service2Client LLC will achieve any result. The NSAD has not reviewed any of the Service2Client LLC content. Readers are encouraged to contact their CPA regarding the topics in these articles.

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