First of all, a disclaimer. I’m posting this not as a financial advisor, not even close, but as someone who learned how much it is important to be faithful by honoring God with financial resources whether we have a lot or little.

In January of this year, I made a posting on my social media how I began to teach my kids to create 3 buckets: give, invest, and spend. My 10 and 8-year-old kids are getting $30 each month as an allowance, and they give $10 to God, invest $10 in stocks and ETFs, and deposit $10 to their checking accounts to spend when they want to. Even though I posted this almost a year ago, people still mention it, especially the idea of teaching kids to invest. Since I’ve asked how I do it, I thought I would share with you a little bit about it.

(1) Every month, I print out a sheet I made and named it as Give and Invest. It begins with a list of churches, ministries, and nonprofits, and I let my kids pick 2. They get to donate $5 to each. – $10 to give

(2) Bottom half is the list of companies like Amazon, Apple, Domino’s, McDonald’s, Nintendo, Tesla, Microsoft, Disney, etc. Kids get to pick 2 stocks, and I purchase 2 fractional stocks of them. – $10 to invest
To help kids to invest, I opened custodial accounts at Charles Schwab, but it was a little bit difficult for kids to learn how stock investing works and engage with it. That’s why I opened a Robinhood account and let them manage it. They will be able to open their own when they turn 18.

In addition to my kids picking $10 worth of stocks each month, I invest $10 in Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) for them.

Even though 2022 has been such a difficult year for investors, Theodore’s investment portfolio performed well as you can see from the screenshot I took this morning. Theo is an 8-year-old handsome boy, and he is learning the concept of the economy through investing in stocks.

Again, this is not financial advice.

To help you imagine, if my 10-year-old daughter invests $100 every month in S&P 500, and let’s say the average return rate becomes 10% with monthly compound interest, the end balance could be more than 2.8 million dollars when she becomes 65 while the total contributions are only about $66k. Check out the Investment Calculator at https://www.calculator.net/investment-calculator.html
Some might say this is an example of the Power of compound interest, but I will say the rewards of being a good steward of money.

These are the $0 commission trading platforms I’m using. Check these out if you’re interested because you will get free stocks for opening a new account.

Webull

Robinhood

SoFi Invest

(3) Instead of letting my kids keep in cash, I deposit monthly allowance into their checking accounts. – $10 to spend

At first, I tried Chase First Banking which is a debit card for kids, but it wasn’t working for me. So my kids are using CapitalOne Money. That’s not all. They’re earning 0.10% APY for keeping money in their own debit cards. (I know it’s nothing compared to the 2.5% APY you can get through SoFi Checking for you, but again, kids are learning.)

So far, kids are loving it.

There are services like Greenlight or GoHenry with a monthly fee, but I don’t understand why anyone would consider using them when there are excellent services to use for free.

I hope this is helpful information for someone. 😀

What is something you didn’t learn growing up that you wish you had? When I was growing up, even though my parents taught me well how to give to God, they didn’t teach me how to manage money, spend or invest. I made many mistakes, and I’m sure I will make more mistakes here and there. Nonetheless, I’m not going to forget that God wants us to honor him.

“Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.” Proverbs 3:9-10

Giving, investing/saving, and spending could be the clearest indicators of what we care about. Put God first through giving. Remember and give thanks to God for he provides all our needs. Don’t forget to generously give because we’re blessed to be a blessing.