Doesn’t this sound like the most ridiculous proposition where in order to learn good financial management habits you need to learn how to actually spend money? But that’s a point I heard recently which in some ways makes sense as a lot of kids actually don’t receive the necessary training and experience to manage money at an early age. Some examples that were used were for simple thing such as buying snacks. Usually whenever something needs to be bought for the child the adults would simply buy it do it for them and that’s the end of that. Therefore, it is argued that you are taking away experience a child needs to learn the value of money.
Theoretically, if you give them the money to go purchase the product it can open up a lot of lessons they need to learn. For example, if they end up buying something else that is a worst deal then they can learn from it and do better next time. In many ways I agree with this as one of the big ways I learned to manage money responsibly is how I was given a bi-weekly allowance and with that money I go to spend it myself. Fortunately I had the benefit of seeing how others spend money as well and their regrets when they blow everything at once. So that made me want to be better with it.
As well, I mentioned before that making and practicing finance with video games where an aspect of it is to earn and spend money helped immensely. Everyone lets kids walk on their own two feet as soon as possible. So maybe giving a child some experience in managing and spending money at an early age wouldn’t be a bad idea as well.