Everyone goes through the stages of teaching their children important facts on handling money, parents help their children open savings accounts and pay them for doing their chores around the house to implement the concept of work is rewarded by money and money is a good thing to save for things that we want, but a lot of parents do not go into detail about the cost of an item compared to the benefits of the item.
When you want to buy a new car or new lounge suite you might include your children in the decision on make or colour, but the actual cost of the item is not disclosed. The most logical reason for this is that you do not want to run the risk of your child blurting out your lavish expenditure to your neighbors or other people who have no need to know the cost of your latest asset.
The problem with this is that children have no way of understanding how to relate the cost of something to the benefits of getting the item. If you had to explain to your children that the cost of the new lounge suite is $20,000 but you have saved as a family for the last twelve months and can therefore afford to buy the new lounge suite because the old one is looking shabby, has broken springs and is no longer comfortable for guests to sit on, they can understand that the cost is relevant to savings and the need for the lounge suite.
There are two basic rules to discussing the numbers involved in money related decisions as well as other information on this topic in the post on The New York Times.
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