Action is more than word. I live by what I preach. Children learn from the parent. My daughter has 20 dollar per week allowerence. She save more than 50 percent. I am very pround of her.

I have always taught my kids to be thrifty with money and that they can not have something they can not afford. When my children wants something expensive they must save money to but it. I really think we live in a country that wants what we want now and do not stop and think about if we can afford it, and this is something I think we can teach our children not to do.

I have my 9-year old son help select groceries by cost "value"; he pays the bills in restaurants and calculates the change and tip; he has a savings account & Education IRA he uses to follow the gains/losses; he counts out dollar bills/coins for receipts and his favorite color is---GREEN!

We have always been big on financial literacy. I participate in a literacy program that is beneficial and can be applied from grades 6 - whenever. It is a great way to connect with the community and fill a gap that is not stressed on in schools.

My girls have their own accounts and do very well with money. I feel I have done my part in helping them become financially responsible.

Not all literacy programs try to sell you something, they really are for the benefit have having children in the know.

my daughter is 8 and we tell her we cant buy 60.00 doller jeans at peeples we get the same at walmart for 15-00.she beging to understand.that we have to watch what we spend.

My son is 7, so our efforts are modest at this point. We try to make sure he understands why we can't buy the Spongebob gummies; because we can buy 2 boxes of the store brand for the same price. He now understands what coupons are, and how they work, along with the store discount cards and sale items. When he gets money, he decides what item he wants to buy and saves every penny he gets until he has enough to get it.

I recently had to explain why I couldn't just write a check for something very expensive. He didn't realize that the money had to be in the bank and that it only comes from our paychecks. I got a chuckle out of that one.

As for schools, I am very unimpressed with the education he is already getting from the public school system. Having them provide financial education seems pointless since they are teaching my son how to use a number line when he can do Algebra.

We have developed a budget with our 17 year old daughter. She has set percentages established for giving (10%),emergency fund (10%), long term savings (20%), a Roth IRA (15%), college (20%) and spending (25%). We hope that by the time she has finished her education that she will have developed real self-discipline financially.

She has a checking account that she uses to manage the money that we would normally spend for her - clothing, personal care, entertainment. This allows her to develop the ability to choose between competing priorities and it keeps us from arguing about where she shops.

We have taken on the task of teaching her about money because know that the way that we use money is a reflection of personal values. Show me your checkbook and I can tell you what is important in your life.

We are also aware that many school districts use financial literacy programs that are sponsored by companies who have an interest in selling their products - DEBT. Dave Ramsey has wonderful tools that can be used in elementary or high school classrooms. Unfortunately, my district was unwilling to use them. See www.daveramsey.com "Kids, Teens and Money" The AICPA has wonderful financial literacy tools as well. See www.feedthepig.org.

We are fully aware that when our child goes off to college that she will be inundated by credit card companies and it is our hope that she will live by our example to not use credit cards EVER. At a time when a young adult needs to forgo material goods and focus on education, we allow banks and finance companies to tell them that even when they have NO ability to pay, they should have stuff they want but do not need. Additionally, we have said that debt is ok because we allow them to borrow money to finance the education. This is why so many young adults are now declaring bankruptcy before they hit their 25th birthday.

The Wall Street Journal published a story yesterday (10/8/08) "The Next Bailout: Your Adult Children?" which discusses the growing number of families where the parents consider how to deal with their over leveraged kids.

We teach our son about finances by talking openly about our everyday financial lives, modeling those ideas for him and including him in the ways that we can.

Talking about things like: using what we need while not being wasteful because things cost money, how we weigh our wants/needs/product quality/price/budget to make buying decisions, not getting everything we want or even sometimes feel like we "need", that some people have more and some less than us, our values about helping people,

We don't give him an allowance yet (he's 5) because in our opinion he's not quite ready for it, but we regularly give him the opportunity to prioritize his choices.

Growing up my parents told me what I should and shouldn't do with my money, but never really modeled or guided me through any of those decisions or thought processes. I had to learn from experience when I was already on my own - talk about a hard way to learn! I want my son to know how big of a role finances play in daily life so he learns as much from experience as he can at a young age.

And I think its essential for schools to teach about personal finances... but I think they need to be careful to not cross the value line. They should be teaching life skills like how to create a budget, balance a checkbook, manage investments or handle a credit card... But teaching financial/life values should definately be left to the families.

I think financial literacy is very important and should be taught in schools. I wish that I would have been taught that in school when I was growng up. I always say I wish there were some good guidelines out there to help us in teaching our children what we have learned over the years. How do you express how important it is to maintain good credit and save money for a rainy day and what real life is all about? I have a tendancy to spoil my child even knowing she must think money grows on trees (as my mom used to say to me) but I honestly dont know how to teach her what it is she needs to know.

Oh it's definitely a teachable moment. However, school is the last place I want teaching financial literacy, to be honest. Let them deal with what they're already struggling with.

I want to show my kids how to make educated choices on money, spend within their means, and explain the concept of opportunity costs. When we paid off our home in ten years, decided to drive older cars, and pay our credit card off at the end of each month, those are decisions we made so that we could both work part time from home.

The cost of those decisions however are less fancy vacations and saying no to some luxuries people believe are necessities. The trade off is being able to be at every school event and raising what I believe are great kids.

To me, that falls under "values" that haven't been stressed in ages, and I'm not eager to politicize or agendize my core values.