How To Teach Your Children Money Management

[CanuckExpat]

How To Teach Your Children Money Management:

• Provide your child invaluable real-world experience by paying them below the poverty level for their manual labor.
• Require a PowerPoint presentation detailing projected quarterly profits before you agree to invest any of your capital in powdered lemonade mix.
• Simulate the free market by having all of your children compete for a single allowance.

...

• Make sure you’re very clear with your college-bound teen about the long-term risks of accumulating credit card debt, as they’ll have to weigh your warnings against the benefits of Capital One T-shirts and Frisbees.
  

[SeattleCPA]

Okay, that's funny.

On a more serious note, the best actual idea I ever heard was Andrew Tobias' "compound interest" game for your kids...

I've probably got the game garbled, but as I remember it, you tell your child or children that you'll give him, her or them five bucks to start but then pay a 10% interest rate every day for as long as 30 days.

If a kid goes the distance, it ends up being around $80 by the end of the month.

But you let a kid take the money early... and in fact, if one kid takes money after a week (about $10) and the other kid after the month ends (nearly $80), everybody really learns the power of compound interest.