For those not familiar with the 80-10-10 principle, it’s simply an allocation of spending. Ten percent of your gross income goes to savings, ten percent goes to charity, and eighty percent gets split between taxes and everything else.
Children usually have no problem with the spending part, but saving and giving to charity can be difficult to teach.
In the next couple of weeks, Psychologist Dr. Joe Dilley will write an article on how to encourage kids to save, but for now, I will be writing about some creative ways to encourage children to give money away.
Let them choose what the money goes toward
If your child shows an interest in helping a particular type of charity, help them find an organization that works in that area. Whether it’s other kids, the poor, or animals, allowing your child to choose what he or she helps will be a big boost to their giving career.
Let your child SEE how the money helps others
If animals are your child’s passion, take them to the local SPCA (we used to call it the pound when I was growing up) and have them talk with someone who is responsible for raising funds for the organization.
This step of your little ones learning about how their money will be used can be a encouragement to their future giving.
If the organization isn’t local, look at the website of the organization together and talk about where the money goes and who it helps.
It’s okay to have rules about giving
If your faith is important to you and you want your child to give to a particular religions organization, you may be able to specify what it goes toward. Does it go toward providing a summer camp scholarship for other kids? Does it go toward feeding the local poor?
It’s okay to set some guidelines on your young child’s giving, especially as they’re young.
By making the process of giving money away fun and educational for kids, you have the chance to instill in them the importance of helping those who are less fortunate.
Click here to read Dr. Joe Dilley’s article on guidelines for giving a child an allowance.
Or you can click here to read The Frugal Couple’s Guide to Giving.
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I like this rule. My son is too young to understand money (or much of anything — he’s almost 4 months old). When he’s older, we’ll teach him how to set aside money to give, how to save for short-term, and how to save for long-term.
We might not do the 80/10/10 rule, but something close enough.