by Connie Adams

Created on: February 24, 2009   Last Updated: February 26, 2009

Money is a family affair, and that includes children. The amount of money you make, have, spend and save directly affects them. What types of clothes and toys they can purchase, what types of food they eat, how many hours they see you outside of work, the stress level they see surrounding you and your spouse ... On and on goes the list of how your children are affected by your money.

Unfortunately, in many families, children have little understanding of the family's financial status and no opportunity to help improve it. Money is simply something that does or does not happen to many kids. They either receive an allowance or they do not. The family can afford vacations or it cannot. Money is saved or it is not. Such comprehension of money is far from realistic - money rarely "just happens" to people - but it is the reality of many children.

I think this is a mistake. As parents, one of our main goals is to turn our children into productive, responsible adults, and one crucial characteristic of such adults is successful money management. Furthermore, managing and saving money are skills that will affect not only our children as they turn into adults, but also our children's families as they marry and have children of their own. Money, as I stated, is a family affair - the unit as a whole can succeed or fail based upon the sum of its parts.

The earlier a child realizes that each member of the family must do their part to make the whole unit successful, the better, and watching pennies can be a crucial factor in moving a family toward security and success. At a relatively young age - certainly by the time they reach double-digit ages - the youngest members of the family can fully grasp what it means to save money and help the family unit. Paying children according to the money they save the family allows them to understand how an entire household uses money to make life possible, how wasting that money on unnecessary expenses results in a financial shortage elsewhere, and how important it is for each individual family member to take personal responsibility for the group.

Here are nine tips for chores and activities your children can perform that will result in calculable savings. When my son actively saves money for our family, I pay him a portion of that savings, so in some of the tips I've made suggestions for paying your child according to what they save. I don't personally recommend paying your children more than they save, as this defeats the purpose of teaching

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