Our adult money habits have been shaped by the time we turn seven. A large-scale study by the UK government’s Money Advice Service and behaviour experts at Cambridge University confirmed what many have been saying all along. Children will either mimic their parents’ knee-jerk spending, or they’ll rebel against it and adopt healthy spending habits instead.

Parents therefore have a critical responsibility to model, discuss and demonstrate to their kids the traits of a healthy relationship with money. Three important money lessons that can be learnt early on include:

1. Planning ahead can help prevent impulsive spending

2. Delaying a purchase holds great benefits

3. Thinking carefully about financial choices can help prevent irreversible mistakes

Teach your child the value of money – with pocket money

Giving children a fixed allowance is still the most effective way to teach them the value of money and how to save for the things they want. Every family is different, so it’s up to you to decide on a realistic amount and whether or not your children will earn their pocket money by helping with chores.

Make sure you spend time explaining to them what they’ll need to pay for from their pocket money. Will they need to use it for smaller purchases like sweets and toys, or to save up for larger purchases? Learning patience through saving is an important money lesson and the discipline they’ll learn now will serve them well in adulthood.

Here are four tips to get you started:

1. Give a set amount of pocket money on a specific day of the week or month. How much will depend on your budget and what they will have to use it for, not how much other kids are getting.
2. Distinguish from the beginning between those chores they will be paid for and those that simply have to be done.
3. Consider the 50, 40, 10 rule: save 50%, spend 40%, donate 10%. Stress the importance of saving and budgeting as often as is necessary.
4. When children are little, a piggy bank or jar where they can see their money grow in front of their eyes is still the best way to teach kids to save.

It’s not about how much you earn

Financial health and the need for good money habits cut across income levels and social positions, affirms Sylvia Walker, a financial planner and author of Smartwoman: How to Gain Financial Independence and Create Wealth. It has more to do with saving and budgeting skills than the amount you earn, she says. Our basic money habits will always win, regardless of whether we’re earning R1 000 or R10 000 a month.

For this reason, all parents should take seriously the importance of instilling financial discipline in their children from an early age.

There’s an app for that!

If your child has a cellphone and is old enough to understand and use apps, these will help them learn the value of saving:

• PiggyBot – a virtual piggy bank that helps kids track spending and saving
• Allowance & Chores Bot – a robot that keeps kids updated on their chores and scores progress
• Savings Spree – an tool to encourage smart choices by letting kids separate their money into four categories

With all the resources at our disposal, there’s no reason why our children should one day echo our wish to have been taught to be more money-savvy early in life.