Raising children means always having to juggle your priorities - you want them to have fun, enjoy little treats, and feel like they’re part of the activities their friends are doing, but you also want to give them a good financial foundation and start in life. The tricky part is finding that middle ground where you can do both without feeling like you’re failing at either. With that in mind, keep reading to find out more about how to balance treats and savings for kids.
Understanding What Really Counts As A Treat
When you hear ‘treat’, it’s easy to think of expensive gadgets or big trips, but for children, treats are often about attention and novelty, more than price. An afternoon in the park with ice cream, a board game night, or baking biscuits together can be as memorable as the priciest toy, and once you realize that, it’s easier to say yes to treats without overspending.
Setting A Clear Budget
If treats are eating into your savings goal, it might not be the treats themselves - it could be the lack of structure around them. That’s why it’s a good idea to set a monthly ‘fun budget’ for your kids because that’s essentially going to give you permission to spend without guilt, and it makes it easier to track where the money is going. This way, treats become a planned part of your finances rather than impulse buys that add up.
Building Savings Into The Routine
Treats don’t have to be at the expense of savings - by setting up automatic contributions to a savings account or investment plan for your child, you make progress without having to think about it. For long term goals, such as funding future education, RESPS can be a tax-efficient way to grow those savings while benefitting from government contributions. The key is to set this up first, so it’s not tempting to use that money on something else.
Teaching Kids About Trade Offs
One of the best ways to balance treats and savings is to involve your children in the decision-making process. Show them that choosing one thing might mean waiting for another, and help them with their own savings goals as well. That not only teaches financial responsibility, but also makes treats more appreciated when they arrive.
Making Savings Fun
If savings feel invisible, they’ll always lose out to something more exciting in the moment, but you can make them more tangible for kids by using charts to track progress, showing them their account balance grow, and even matching a portion of what they save themselves. When they can see and measure the results, saving becomes a lot more rewarding.
Keeping Perspective
It’s easy to stress over whether you’re getting the balance exactly right, but the reality is that it will change over time, and some months you might spend a little more on experiences, and others you might focus on building savings. What matters is that over the long run, you’re creating both happy memories and a financial safety net for your children.