Christmas is only 10 days away with gift buying and decorating.
Kids may notice that there's a lot of spending going around this holiday season.
Joining us now to help us teach kids the value of gifts.
And the Christmas spirit is Doctor
Eugene Mora
and she's a licensed clinical psychologist, Doctor
Regen. Welcome to the show. So why is it so important to talk to kids
about budgeting during the holidays? Yeah.
So one of my favorite topics as we're all going through this right now.
Uh So one of the important things is our kids are constantly watching us.
Um they're watching how we're spending money.
And so it's really important to teach them the value
of money and how it's spent and having those comfortable
conversations that actually feel uncomfortable.
Um Also teaching them uh the gift of giving to others and learning how to give.
It's not just about receiving but giving.
Um and uh one thing I really like is for example,
just to keep in mind over the holidays too is
as they're receiving gifts,
what is it that they can actually give from their gifts
to someone else and kind of thinking about you know,
going to a shelter or something like that.
It's like the first line of budgeting. You're getting something.
What are you gonna give to someone else? What about five tips?
Five keys to budgeting? Oh gosh.
So five tips that I really like is number one,
create a list of all the people you can sit down with your child or even if you
and create a list of who you want to send to. Uh the gift.
Um Number two is the budgeting part is creating a budget together.
So are they gonna be spending their own money or they gonna be spending
um your money and coming up with also like the cost per person?
So what does that mean? So you're gonna spend $20 and I'm gonna put in $5.
Um So that's why it's really important to come up with um
a budget piece of how much do you wanna spend per person.
Um The other thing is what happens when you can't really
spend the money and you have to work on a tight,
tight budget.
Um So in those kind of situations,
what I like to do is kind of having that conversation with them of, well,
we could do baked goods, we can um think outside the box and that's also bonding time.
Uh
if they like to draw, do a drawing, pottery,
uh whatever it is that they can be creative with.
Um And lastly what's really important to keep in mind with our kids is
not just we're receiving, but again,
I go back to the giving part is the delivery of the gifts
because they really kids love to give at the end of the day.
Um and they get so excited
about that.
My kids love to open the gift
wrapping and that's like the joy of it.
As I was doing research before this interview, uh I came across the 50 30 20.
Ho ho
how does that apply for kids? Oh gosh.
So I love that because um that's why people don't like to go shopping with it.
So when I was thinking about that, so the 50 is really easy.
So the 50 is, what is it that I need?
So even when we go shopping as adults, what is it that I need when I'm in the store?
Do I really need that? Because then I end up buying the same thing
when I'm going shopping with my kids.
They're always saying you're buying the same thing of everything.
So that's not a need
and the 30% is the want. Do I really want this?
What do I want things that end up being um extra
and the 20% is saving. How much am I gonna put aside?
You know, every time that I receive money,
I love that 20% savings 30% wants. So how can kids earn extra gift money? Oh gosh. Yes.
Well,
I, you know, when we think about clutter in the house,
that's the first thing that comes to my mind
is creating little jobs for them to do around the house because
this is actually training them for their future and for earning,
um, a lot of times parents get really confused about, well,
I don't wanna pay my kids for grades.
No,
but it's really about teaching them that they have their
own job and their job is to go to school.
Their job may be doing chores around the house, their job may be an extra chore,
like declutter a room that
um you wanna take care of.
So what about other ways to teach kids about budgeting
during the holidays?
So other ways after the holidays,
holidays are kind of over what happens with budgeting.
Um and my daughter is in college now
and so we're all constantly talking about this and kids feel really at a loss,
they don't know how to budget for them.
It's just spending, spending, spending.
So when they start getting a job, actually a real job,
um actually teaching them how to put a
certain portion of money into a savings account,
going to the bank with them and actually opening a savings
account and teaching them how to put little distributions there.
Those are really great ways for them to learn how to budget
and be comfortable talking about money. It's ok.
You know, I love that push and pull because the more you save, the more you can invest.
And when you see your investment growing,
you feel a little bit less likely to go out and actually spend it.
So,
generally speaking, how old were your kids when you started this process?
Uh we're constantly talking about it.
So, uh since they were little, just, you know, mine are 1816 and 13.
And so we're constantly talking about money and then kids will often say, wait,
are we poor?
Are we, you know,
they get into that mindset because there's a shame around talking about it.
So I really wanna destigmatize that and
think about that. No, we have to talk about it.
It's important and being mindful over what you are spending,
how much you're spending
and parents be open about it. It's ok.
You're teaching them how to save and how to invest for their future.
The savings and the investment are so critical to this whole equation in my
because I always say, you know, a dollar saved means a dollar for the future. So
it's a question of how far are you planning?
And uh I think that's sort of my kids were already thinking about ok, this summer,
what are we gonna get this summer?
So
they're exciting. Thank you so much for joining us. So those are some great tips
um for teaching kids how to stretch their dollar doctor,
regime licensed clinical psychologist. Thank you. Thank you for having me.