I never knew how much my parents made when I was growing up. All I knew was that they worked hard, there was always food on the table, and we got to go on cool vacations once in awhile. I think that's really all you need to know at a young age. Doing chores, mowing lawns, etc, is a good way to learn the value of a dollar at a young age. At 14 I started working a real job and opened a checking account, seems like a perfect age to be learning about how to manage your own finances.
Usually when people say kids must "learn the value of a dollar", they imply kids underestimate how important that dollar is... but to me it feels like the reverse.
Kid-me would have been absolutely shocked at how many potential candy-bars/toys/etc. are being spent on adult things like rent or gas or insurance.
It goes both ways. At first money is meaningless, completely free. Then as you learn its value, it is incredibly valuable to you. Five whole dollars! Wow!
Why not younger, though? My parents included me in budgeting decisions much earlier, helping me create my own budget at around 6 or 7 (with my weekly $3 allowance), and showing me their thought process when they made decisions about how to spend money.
I think starting talk about budgeting and managing money needs to happen at the same time as kids learning about how money works. I never had a time that I knew about money but didn't know about budgeting; they went hand in hand. Because of this, I have never had any of the standard financial issues a lot of my peers had (never ran up credit card debt, always lived within my means, saved for retirement from my first job, etc).
I guess my question is more "Why NOT share this important life information with your kids early on? What is the point of keeping it from them?"
