No matter how old your kids are, most financial gurus recommend teaching them about money, budgeting and credit, giving them age-appropriate lessons until they leave the home and strike out on their own. Here’s a look at some suggestions (via Credit.com) for preparing your offspring for the world of finance:

• Communicate about credit: When you’re at the store with your kids and pay with a credit card, make sure to explain how the system works. When kids see a no-cash transaction, they might assume you’re getting your purchases for free. So take a moment to explain how the credit card works and that the bill will arrive later.
• Follow through: If you’re comfortable showing your children your credit card bills, follow up a spoken lesson with a bill-paying lesson next time you sit down to take care of your credit card bill. If you don’t want your child to see the state of your debt or finances, simply explain what you’re doing when you get the next bill.
• Use the tools available to you: Since the passage of the Credit CARD Act, credit card bills have had a little square summarizing the amount of money owed and the length of time it would take to pay off this money making only minimum payments.
• Get them involved: Have trouble getting your kids to turn off lights or bundle up in cold months? Try this tip from WalletPop.com: Show them the electric bills for the past few months and offer to split any savings with them if the next bill drops. This will give them a concrete incentive to conserve electricity.
• Encourage savings: If you give your children an allowance or pay for certain chores, consider offering your offspring an incentive for saving the money they get. One option is to offer a percentage match for any money they set away instead of spending.
• Encourage working: At 12 or 13 years old, most children are old enough to work some kind of job (like babysitting, lawn mowing, or shoveling snow). This also tends to be the age where kids start becoming more trend-conscious and begin requesting items you don’t feel like paying for. Making them buy certain things from their own earnings will teach them the value of money like nothing else.
• Talk about credit cards: Even if you have opted for a credit-card-free lifestyle, it’s important to understand that your kids, when they become adults, will have to deal with the kinds of temptations and offers for credit that you navigate every day. For this reason, it’s important to have conversations about how credit cards work, their benefits and risks, and what kinds of behaviors to avoid when using credit cards.

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