Teaching Value: How to Set Family Financial Goals With Your Kids This Year

By the Editorial Team at Musa Magazine

In many of our Latino families, we grew up with an unspoken rule: “You don’t talk about money in front of children.” It was seen as an adult topic—or worse, a burden we didn’t want them to carry.

However, in a country as consumer-driven as the United States, silence doesn’t educate. If we don’t teach our children the value of money at home, advertising and social media will teach them how to spend it elsewhere. In 2026, the best gift you can give them isn’t a toy—it’s financial intelligence.

Here’s how to turn finances into a fun, educational team project.

1. Break the Taboo: The Family “Board Meeting”
Call a special family meeting (pizza helps). The goal is to change the language: instead of saying “we don’t have money for that,” start saying “that’s not in our goal for this month.”

• The shift: This removes the feeling of poverty or scarcity and replaces it with a sense of purpose and choice. Children learn that money is a limited resource that must be managed wisely.

2. Create a Shared “Dream Goal”
Children (and teenagers) struggle with abstract saving. They need a tangible objective.

• The action: Ask them, “What would we like to do together this year?” It could be a trip to Disney, a video game console for the living room, or visiting grandparents in our home country.
• The plan: Put a price on that dream. If the trip costs $2,000, break it into monthly goals. Now saving has a name and a face.

3. Make It Visual
For younger kids, a credit card feels magical—you swipe it and things appear. They need to see physical progress.

• The tool: Draw a big thermometer on poster board and hang it on the refrigerator. Every time you save $50 or $100 toward the family goal, let them color in a section. Watching the red line rise gives instant satisfaction and teaches patience.

4. Teach Opportunity Cost
This is the most valuable lesson of all. When you’re at the store and they ask for something outside the budget, don’t just say “no.”

• The conversation: Say, “We can buy this toy today, but that means it will take us two more weeks to fill the thermometer to go to Disney. What do you prefer?”
• The result: You’re teaching them to make decisions and delay instant gratification for a greater reward. You’ll be surprised how often they choose the big goal over the momentary impulse.

Involving your children in household goals isn’t taking away their childhood—it’s giving them the tools to become independent, confident, debt-free adults one day. That’s the true inheritance.