Gifts That Teach Kids About Money

I just ran across an interesting article on gifts that teach kids about money by David Bach (the author of The Automatic Millionaire). Here’s the rundown…

1. Piggybanks (ages 3-11) - Here’s a bunch of possibilities. He also goes on to recommend a few specific piggybanks:

Moonjar’s Moneybox
Money Savvy Pig
LeapFrog Super Saver Teaching Bank

2. Story books about money (ages 3-8) - Some specific titles that he recommends are:

“If You Made a Million” by David M. Schwartz
“Alexander, Who Used to be Rich Last Sunday” by Judith Viorst
“A Dollar for Penny” by Julie Glass
“It’s a Habit, Sammy Rabbit!” by Sam Renick

3. Monopoly (ages 8 and up) - There are a huge number of Monopoly versions available. Check them out here.

4. Beginning Personal Finance Organizer (ages 13-19) - In particular, he recommends the Cash Cache, which includes a handbook covering the basics of personal finance, as well as templates for goal setting and tracking progress, pouches for storing money, and pockets for

5. Stocks (all ages) - Consider using services such as Sharebuilder or MyStockFund Kids to set up a custodial account where your kids can hold shares of their favorite companies (McDonald’s, Coke, Disney, Nintendo, etc.) and learn about how the stock market works.

[Source: Yahoo! Finance]