Teaching my daughters to save while I learn to save myself

I’m a single mom of two beautiful, bright daughters: Ayanda, who’s 12, and Naledi, who’s 4. One thing I’ve seen from raising my girls is that children don’t learn money habits from what we say, they learn from what we do. 

My saving journey with my daughters started on a random Saturday afternoon as we waited in the queue to pay for our groceries. Looking at the sweets on display, Ayanda said, “Mom, can I have this chocolate?”

Before I could answer, Naledi jumped in: “You always say ‘no’ because we don’t have money.” You can imagine the embarrassment I felt, especially because the dad in front of us had just picked up one of those five-for-the-price-of-three combos for his family without any of his kids having to ask. So out of shame, I obliged. 

I know Naledi didn’t mean to hurt me, she was just being honest, the way kids are. But something about those words stayed with me. Because the truth was, I didn't plan well. Most months, I barely had money to carry me through the entire month. I had always just made do. I have seen almost three generations of women in my family just make do. But I know that's not what I want for my kids. 

How I am teaching my girls to save

I realised that we all needed to change our mindsets when it came to balancing our wants with what we could afford. But a question that kept running through my mind was: how could I teach my girls to save when my own bank account was on a negative balance most weeks. I looked up a few ways that I could make the idea of learning how to save fun and an experience we could all learn from. 

There are countless saving tips and parenting hacks out there, but I knew I had to start small and gradually build on that. 

We took three empty yoghurt tubs and labeled them: save, spend and share.

We had fun decorating them with stickers, khokis, paint even a little bit of glitter to help the girls own and make the most out of this experience – and to feel proud of what they had made. 

I wanted them to feel like saving money wasn’t a punishment. I wanted the experience to feel personal, meaningful, and even a little fun.

When I saw how well my girls were doing and to keep them encouraged I made a deal with them that if they brought back any change from their pocket money, I’d match it. This was my way of encouraging the habit of saving, even in the smallest ways. I believe that they are slowly learning something that I myself have struggled with when it comes to money: the joy of watching their savings grow. 

Now, when we make on our weekly grocery shopping trips, they are allowed to take a little bit of money to treat themselves and, over time, I hope that they'll start to understand the concept of patience and why it's important to save.