Booyah Breakdown: Teaching Your Kids About Money

But you can discuss the concept of money with them. "Start talking to them when they start saying 'I want,'" says Neale Godfrey, chairwoman of the Children's Financial Network in Chester, N.J. and author of Money Doesn't Grow On Trees: A Parent's Guide to Raising Financially Responsible Children. She suggests age 3 (although I swear my kids were saying that right after their second birthdays). At that point, you can begin to teach them that they get things when they earn them.

One way to do this is to have them perform simple little chores and give them an allowance upon completion. My kids get $1 a week if they make their beds every day. That may sound like a pittance to some of you, but to my 6-, 5- and 3-year-olds, it's a pot of gold. And I get cheap labor -- a 3-year-old who makes her own bed for only a buck. How about that?

Another suggestion is to buy them a piggy bank and insist they put some of the money grandma and grandpa give them in it. Start the notion of saving as early as you can.

And then take a trip to the bank. "A 5-year-old is ready open a bank account," says Godfrey. Your kindergartener can see how his money grows as he saves it and can start to understand the idea of earning interest on it.