If you aren’t careful, you could wind spending a lot of extra money on unexpected kids expenses. For most families, a good portion of disposable income (or even not so disposable) goes missing this way. You can get the situation under control by putting your kids on a budget. Okay, let us face it, it is really you who are on a budget, but you’ll be glad.
Determine how you should budget per child. You might be surprised how quickly the expenses add up when it comes to kids. Establish a mini budget per child, since you may have different expenses related to each one. Then separate out the amounts needed per category.
For example, are there dedicated activities that require fees, such as sports, boy scouts or church groups? What about unexpected school expenses, such books they might want to purchase at the book fair, spirit wear or spending money for class trips?
If you offer an allowance, make a determination at this time about which expenses you will cover out of your kid budget and which expenses will come out of their own allowances.
Over time, you might have to make a few tweaks here and there, but the nice thing about putting kids on a budget is that when the money is gone, it is gone. There is no extra spending money available, and this keeps the expenses in check.
Another benefit to establishing a kid budget is that you can allow the kids themselves to manage their own accounts. An easy way to do this is to put the budget amount, in cash, in envelopes. This gives a visual clue as to how much money is left. By managing their own accounts, kids can learn valuable lessons about money.
Take the lesson to the next level by showing older kids how to create a spreadsheet that tracks the budget and their spending habits.