Teach children about money with jars

Teaching children to be responsible with money can be challenging, especially when they so often see us wave our cards to make any purchase. Actual physical money doesn’t ever look to exchange hands.

As many of my parent and teacher friends have asked me, I thought I share with you how I tackle this with my own children. Introducing some simple tips on how you can teach children about money with jars and cute labels. For this project I’ve used my Cricut Maker.

Sponsored by : Cricut Australia and New Zealand.

Please note that this project is in collaboration with Cricut Australia and New Zealand and I was gifted a Cricut Maker and accessories.

Learning to be responsible with money is an important life skill and something I believe should be taught at a young age. Fortunately though, I find children are often quite fascinated by money and will happily engage in learning more about it.

Talking to your children about money

Money can often be a taboo topic in and out of the home, which is unhelpful when it’s such a big part of our lives. The good news is that to teach your child about money, you don’t need to be an expert to help them learn more about it and develop skills in how it can be managed.

My suggestion is to keep it simple, age appropriate and hands on. When you’re out with your child and using money, take the opportunity to talk about money and your thoughts about your spending.

Where does money come from?

This is a great question to discussion point to have with children. Parents might investigate through the Internet where money is printed and how people come to own it themselves.

Wants vs Needs

Often our purchases fall into two categories, needs and wants. Discuss with children this concept as it helps them understand money value and how it relates to daily purchase. How will a purchase impact us?

Engaging in money

How you engage your children in money is completely dependent on your own family and your circumstances and values.

Often parents will use money as a reward, such as giving weekly pocket money for completing jobs. This can be a great way to teach children about earning money in exchange for extra or difficult tasks.

Personally, along with our regular conversations about money, our family choose to give small amounts of money each week and have our children choices on how it will be used.

We don’t base it on what jobs they complete. Chores are done because it’s part of being a family and working together. You can learn more from the Barefoot Investor and his approach to this here.

Using jars to help teach your children about money

I used my wonderful Cricut Maker to create some gorgeous money jars for my youngest daughter (aged 5 years).

Using the Cricut reflective mermaid vinyl for the labels, she was excited and ready to get start managing her money.

I recommend the follow labels for your jars –

• Spend (money that can be used for any purchase)
• Save (money that needs to be saved until a goal amount is achieved)
• Donate (money to be given to a chosen charity)

My oldest daughter, aged 8 years has an additional jar –

• Invest

Investing a more challenging concept for children to understand. For my oldest daughter, if she contributes money into her investment jar we (her parents) will contribute and extra 15% to the jar.

The catch to the investment jar is that this money can’t be used until a birthday! Even then, the money doesn’t have to be used but allowed to grow.

How to make money jar labels using Cricut Maker

I love gorgeous labels on things and the Cricut has certainly allowed me to do that.

Let me share with you how to make these labels using a Cricut Maker.
You will need –

• Cricut Maker (or similar Cricut cutting machine)
• Cricut Grip Mat
• Cricut Design Space (free account)
• Cricut holographic vinyl
• Cricut scraper
• Transfer tape
• ruler

Begin by designing your labels in your Cricut Design Space

– save, spend, donate etc.

I purchased this New York Design Studio font from Etsy.

Follow the instructions and set your Cricut Maker to cut out the lettering.

Why I love my Cricut Maker

I’ve become quite obsessed, if I’m honest.

The Cricut Maker is your ideal tool to help you make almost any DIY project you could think of. It cuts paper, vinyl, faux leather, felt, basswood…..
The list goes on and the possibilities feel quite endless.

Cutting engraving, debossing and many other decorative effects is possible.

Once your Cricut Maker has finished doing it’s thing, you can weed out the background space using a weeding tool.  

Cut some transfer tape and place it over your text label.

Use a Cricut scraper or similar to ensure the text label sticks to the tape.

Transfer the text label to the jar and scrap over it to ensure a good seal.

Continue this process with your other labels.

Once you’ve got all your jars ready, you can begin teaching your child how they can use them.

Each time they receive a little bit of money, they can decide how they plan to use it. Do they want to spend it now on a lolly at the store, do they want to save it for something special or donate it to a charity will put it to use to help others.

Share below how you teach your children about money.

I’d love to hear what you do.