When we were younger, my parents gave us an allowance - not for specific chores, although it was expected that we would help out. If we did "extra" chores (mowing the lawn, etc) we'd get extra allowance. We had to separate it - 10% charity, 50% savings, 40% whatever we want. I usually ended up saving that too. Then, when we had regular jobs, my parents expected us to keep saving half (although they didn't enforce it, they encouraged it, and strongly encouraged the charity side) and we had to give them 10%. The idea was that it taught us about budgeting - and that not all of our money was ours. The "hidden secret" was that we got all the 10% we'd given them back later when we graduated from college (or hit another appropriate life stage) - we just didn't know it until we got there. From an early age, I helped my mom pay bills - at first just stamping envelopes, but by high school I was helping keep track of the family budget too. I like to think that it was an excellent preparation for running a household now.
What do you do to help teach your kids about money?
Here are some excellent websites for helping teach kids about money:
Young Investor
Kids Finance
PBS Kids Money site
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