Raising money- savvy kids

Other local parents share ideas for teaching financial literacy to children:

Carmen Aguiar of Bellevue, mother of 11-year-old Felipe and a certified financial planner, uses two glass jars to help her son prioritize his spending.

On top of one jar, Felipe tapes a picture of something he wants to work toward — say, a scooter or a video game. The other jar holds his weekly allowance or income from small jobs he takes on to earn extra money.

Every time he takes money out of the spending jar, it must be replaced with the receipt for whatever was purchased.

At the end of the week, Aguiar and Felipe review what's left in the spending jar. Sometimes, it's just receipts. If there's money left, some can be moved to the other jar, to be saved toward the goal pictured on top.

The Sanidads of Newcastle have their two girls, Jamie, 11, and Erica, 9, research companies that make things they are interested in, such as toys or cereal.

They check the trend of its stock price and go to the store to compare the prices of their favorites against competitors.

The girls also count cranes or semi-trucks they can see from the freeway, and their parents use that to start discussions about the state of the economy and how things are manufactured and distributed.

When Scott Butterfield's teenage daughter said she wanted a debit card, her dad said she first had to complete a free personal-finance program from the National Endowment for Financial Education (hsfpp.nefe.org/home/).

Each Sunday morning for six weeks, the two would sit down at home in Sumner and talk over the lessons she had completed on her own the previous week.

The Butterfields also have started sharing more of their personal financial information with their five children, such as their mortgage and insurance payments.