Parenting Tips

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Parenting Tips

Your role as a parent

You have two roles as a parent when teaching your child about money:

to talk to your child about managing money throughout his or her life
to model good financial behavior

It can be hard to know when you should start to talk to your kids and where to begin. Heritage has a few resources to help.

	This is a great website for both parents and kids. There is a section called Pointers for Parents that helps review finance basics, give you advice on age-appropriate topics & tools, and learning aids.
	This web-based tool helps your child learn finance basic with games, calculators, and stories written by kids. There are 3 different age levels. 5 Spot for elementary students, AJ's for middle schoolers, and C Note for high school students.
	For highschoolers or college bound students this a great magazine written by young adults for young adults.
	Check out our web pages for products and learning tools for children of all ages.

Teach your kids about money

Learning how to think about money and manage it wisely is a very important life skill. To help your child start, build a foundation that includes managing money. Introducing terms like saving, spending and investing at an early age will help your child understand the choices. Kids learn by doing and it is helpful to make lessons interesting and engaging. Help your kids keep track of their money with a Yellow Dude Savings Passbook. They will learn about depositing and withdrawing from their very own credit union account. Stop by your local branch to open an account.

Simple steps to get your child saving

Discuss saving - use examples that your child will understand. Let them know it is important to pay themselves first by depositing a portion of any gifts received or allowances.

Set goals - Work with your child to set goals of different terms. For example, a short-term goal may be going to a movie next Saturday, while a long-term goal may be an ipod or new bike. After you have set these goals talk to them about the difference between wants and needs. Also, help them set up a plan to meet these goals. Maybe it is matching a portion of what they save as an incentive to encourage saving their money at the credit union.

Allowance - Consider giving your kids an allowance. Having their "own" money makes it easier for them to understand the concept of money.

Open a savings account - Make opening a savings account an exciting adventure to get your child interested in saving. Bring them to the credit union to open their very own account. Every time they get money have them put a portion in their account.

Reward Good Habits

To make savings fun our Heritage mascot, Yellow Dude, will stamp your child's passbook every time a deposit is made. We'll also send out an invite each year on their birthday to stop in for annual gift. Find out more on our First Account page.

Be smart - use time to boost your savings

The sooner you start saving, the more time there will be for compound interest to build up a nice savings account for your child. If you start by saving only $10 a week now, at 3% interest you will accumulate $10,673.46 by the time your child turns 18.

Youth Saving Accounts

Heritage wants to reward children for starting good savings habits by paying a higher rate of interest on their deposits. A youth savings account can be set up for any child under 18. Higher rates are paid on balances less than $5000 until their 19th birthday. All you need is $25 to open and $100 to start earning interest. Encourge healthy habits with fun tools like a Yellow Dude Savings Passbook, birthday gifts for kids under 12 and educational activity books!