Nanny Adventures

My brother forwarded me this blog link to the blog AllFinancialMatters.   It has a great way that parents and nannies can teach kids about needs vs wants.   I am going to copy it here and provide the link so that you can see the other comments and so forth.  It is a great simple idea.  There are tons of other links to how to teach kids about money there as well!  I hope you find something useful for your family!

Using Mashed Potatoes to Teach Kids About Money

Mashed Potatoes

With regard to teaching young children about money, a great game I recently heard about is called “Mashed Potatoes”.

You explain to the child that Mashed Potatoes represents something we Need to survive as it provides nutrients for our bodies, and that Gravy represents something that may make the mashed potatoes taste better, but it isn’t something we NEED to survive. You have then shown the difference between a WANT and a NEED.

The next step is to create flash cards or cut out pictures from magazines and have the child yell out MASHED POTATOES for something that represents a NEED or GRAVY for something that reprsents a WANT. It is a fun way to begin the process of financial literacy.

So go to the blog post to read more on this and find links to other people who participated in a contest about kids and money.  There were so other great ideas as well.