What parent would not want their kids to grow up as responsible adults who are smart with their money? Smart money habits have to be planted in an early age. Yes kids can be kept busy and happy with a list of activities we have given below that are both educational and thrilling for the kids. These activities I originally found on an app developed by T. Rowe Price and have been practicing with my boy for the last month. It was such fun that I want to share with you too.

Design a budget
Summer vacations were about to be over when I discovered the idea, so me and my son decided to outline items that were needed to go back to school. We approximated how much each thing will cost us and went shopping. When we matched the actual prices with our estimates, to our pleasant surprise they were way below our expectations. We saved money and it was so exciting for my son. What we did was when we were at store we looked around and picked the what offered the best price. The whole experience presented practically how does it actually feel like to save money.

Compare big brand against economic brand
We held a fun blind contest for this one. First we went to the store and picked a couple of items like fruit juices, youghurt, cereal, potato chips and soda, one each of a featured band and one plain economic brand. We then opened the packets one after another and shuffled the bowl/glass with poured out food/drink. Big brand Soda was the only one that won the competition clear cut, other than that we were unable to pick any item that tasted or felt like superior quality over the other.

While the price tags displayed a wide margin difference, we knew what we were going to buy onwards.

Home cooked food or dining out?
We selected some personal favorite dishes. The plan was to prepare them at home while keeping a record of what each n every ingredient cost us. Then compare the prices with online menus for the same dishes.

We tried gluten free tuna-pasta bake, because my son is gluten allergic. The ingredients we used cost us half the price we would’ve payed upon ordering or dine out for the same gluten free tuna pasta bake. Sure cooking is time consuming and a lot of work specially if it is some elaborate dish but saving money is guaranteed on the home front.

Find more tips and tricks and go over Money Saving Expert. They offer some awesome stuff for kids as well as adults to help kids enhance their finance managing skills. They have plain cool games and activities as well.