For those 50 and older, I’m sorry, but in my personal experience, your advice have been way out of date.
Eat the cookie now. Saving might sound like the smart thing to do, but then it gets stale.
And by limiting yourself to onpy having your cookie now? you’ll drive yourself to get better at swiping coolies from the cookie jar in the future 😄
Ask Grandpa for a dollar. When he gives you a dollar, get up in his lap, hug him, and then sit there for a minute telling him what you’ll spend the dollar on. Every time he sees you from then on he’ll happily pay another dollar for that same interaction. Bonus points if you say you’ll spend it on Grandma.
Focus on building blocks and counting. Skip the colouring books
Coloring books are essential to development!
Half for me, half for now. Every check, allowance, paycheck gets split. Half goes into savings the other half they can keep and use on whatever.
This teaches about saving, to some degree taxes, and the power of compound interest without needing to understand the math.
Second suggestion is the old adage: the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best is today.
Applies to retirement and education saving. Also applies to actual trees and climate change mitigation.
Third if you are waiting for someone to do something about “it” you are that someone, might as well get started.
