Teaching children: budgeting

[shootingstar]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe...1949455/page1/

Well how did you learn over time?

Looking back, I think it's remarkable that all of us, myself and sibs, have been savers as adults. We don't do terrible things on each other ie. borrow money and never pay back, or pestering each other for loans or leaching off one another. We each have bought homes on our own. We didn't borrow from parents.

And we never got allowance as children nor as teens. Parents just couldn't afford it.

I am not kiddin'. The rule of thumb around the house: was we would have greater freedom of what we wanted when we started to earn our own money.

And we weren't allowed to take on part-time paid jobs until in our final 1-2 years of high school. We had to focus on our studies.

I'm not sure how my parents did it..but with each of us there were some fierce arguments. Whatever we each asked for, it had to have a good reason and be justified, so usually one saved the discussion/debate for something that was hotly desired.

I do credit my parents that they engaged in long thoughtful discussions amongst themselves about their finances...which large part of the time they never hid from us. Of course they didn't have "sinful" spending habits or obsessions where one of them spent an obscene amount of money in a wasteful way.

When I was 12 yrs. my parents told me how much they paid for their first house.