This was kind of funny but seemed effective. My little nephew at first was telling that he wanted more toys as he was bored and so people should buy him more. Even though he is super young and is not even in school yet, I tried to implant it into his mind that to people have to spend money to get those things for him and so you shouldn’t just demand for it.
At first he didn’t seem to fully understand the notion of saving money and why it can be wise to save it as oppose to just buying things you want like a new toy. Afterwards he saw that I some coins sitting on my desk and he began to stack them up in an organize way. Interestingly enough, once he took the time to try and organize the coins from smallest to biggest he started to say he should save more so that it can get bigger.
That kind of made me laugh as apparently my parents told me I was always obsessed with saving quarters and all as a child which when I think about it is a big factor on why I was always super picky about saving as I didn’t want to just throw away what I built, so to speak, for just anything. I usually find that can be the case even with adults to a certain extent. For example, if you actually organize your wallet when it comes to your paper money you are more aware of how much you have exactly and so you may be more sensitive to what you spend your money on as you don’t want to have less.
Example, imagine a wallet where all your bills are disorganized. Most likely if you saw something on sale for say $20 your mentality if your money wasn’t organized is to simply see if you can find $20 and if so you can then buy it. Whereas if you had everything organized where you can see you have like two $20 bills left then you are more inclined to think you are going to only have one left after. I know for myself in that scenario I would ask myself if the purchase is a wise one or not.
I think we all need these kinds of visual reminders in order to maintain good financial management practices.