Teaching Kids About Money on Vacation

Teaching kids about money on vacation is a great way to prepare them for a responsible and thriving financial future. They’ll learn that managing your finances doesn’t have to be scary– in fact, it can actually be fun!

A woman in a light blue dress is smiling while packing a suitcase on a neatly made bed with blue and white pillows, ready for teaching kids about money on vacation in a bright, airy bedroom.

One of Donnie and my goals as parents is to teach our two sons responsibility with money before they leave our home.

We want them to feel prepared to navigate their finances on their own so they can make smart decisions from the get go and put themselves in a healthy financial position.

As such, we have tried to weave in money lessons and teaching moments as they’ve grown up so that they can gain experience and have a realistic view of what successfully managing your finances entails.

A family of four sits on rocky terrain atop a mountain, smiling at the camera. As they enjoy the view, they're also teaching kids about money on vacation, making the hike both memorable and educational.

One of the boys’ favorite ways we have done this is to put them in charge of tracking the budget while we’re on vacation.

Teaching Kids Financial Responsibility on Vacation: The Setup

Through out the year, our family saves for our summer vacation using sinking funds.

Sinking Funds Spreadsheet on a Laptop Computer, sitting on a white desk

In a nutshell, this means that we set aside a little bit of money each week so that when vacation rolls around, we’ve already saved enough to cover it so we don’t have to go into debt.

This also means that we know exactly how much we have to spend during our vacation if we don’t want to exceed the amount we have saved.

Before we leave, I create spending categories for our trip and assign a budget amount for each one. Our vacation spending categories usually include:

Accommodations
Transportation
Food
Activities
Souvenirs

Depending on where we’re headed, we may have additional categories, but those are the basics I use for almost every vacation.

A tablet displaying a financial spreadsheet with charts sits on a wooden desk next to a latte, wireless earbuds, a pen, and blank paper—perfect tools for teaching kids about money on vacation in a relaxed setting.

We currently use the budget tab in this Travel & Vacation Planning Spreadsheet to track spending on our trip.

After I get the initial budget categories and amounts set up, the kids take over.

Tracking the Vacation Budget to Teach Kids About Money

Every time we make a purchase while we’re traveling, it is the boys’ job to enter the transaction into our shared spreadsheet.

Since the sheet we use is in Google Sheets, everyone in our family has access to it and can easily update it using the Google Sheets app on their phone, tablet, or computer.

A tablet with a keyboard displays a spreadsheet for teaching kids about money on vacation, tracking transactions with columns for date, category, currency, and amount. The device sits on a white desk next to a white mug.

The kids take turns entering our purchases into the transaction log. And since the sheet does the math and automatically tells them how much we’ve spent and how much we have left to spend in each category, they love to report how we’re doing throughout the trip.

They will often look at the amounts we have left and say things like, “Okay, we can spend $X each day from now on and still stay under budget!”

Two people sit side by side on a couch, seen from behind, looking at a smartphone screen together in a bright room—perhaps planning ways for teaching kids about money on vacation.

As we get closer to the end of the trip and our “left to spend” numbers get smaller and smaller, they become especially aware of where our money is going because it feels like a fun game to them to try to stay under our goal numbers.

Donnie once bought a $6 container of cheese at a gas station that the boys deemed too expensive, and they didn’t let him forget it (all in good fun!) the entire trip! 😂

A laptop displaying colorful data dashboards sits on a wooden table in a bright room, suggesting creative ways of teaching kids about money on vacation; a pink suitcase and a staircase are visible in the background.

Teaching Kids About Money on Vacation: Why We Love This Strategy

This strategy has been great for our family for so many reasons!

Mastering Budgeting Basics

First, it is a low-key way to teach kids about tracking their spending and maintaining a budget.

These are great habits and skills for the boys to have moving into adulthood. No matter how much money they end up making, we want them to have confidence that they are stewarding it wisely. Making a budget plan and tracking as they execute it is a fantastic way to do that.

A family of four—two adults and two boys—stand smiling together on a sandy beach at sunset, enjoying the ocean and pastel sky while teaching kids about money on vacation.

We’re framing budgeting not as a tedious chore that is a punishment when money is tight, but as a positive and responsible action they can take to improve their financial picture at any income level.

Maintaining a Positive and Realistic View of Money

Having the boys track our vacation spending also teaches them that even though money is finite, it doesn’t have to be stressful.

Tracking our spending on vacation doesn’t feel like a burden to them– they actually have fun doing it and make a game of trying to stay under budget!

And if an unexpected expense pops up and we go over budget in a certain category, we can discuss how to move money around from other categories so we can still make it work.

A laptop displaying financial charts and data sits on a white wooden coffee table next to a potted plant and an open book, perfect for teaching kids about money on vacation, with large windows revealing a lush green landscape in the background.

Encouraging Smart Decision Making

On vacation, as in life, we often can’t get everything we want.

We are sure to pack in plenty of fun on our trips, but tracking our spending often means we have to decide between various excursions or choose our souvenirs wisely, and we love that the boys play a role in those decisions.

These financial decisions are easier than the ones they’ll make as adults, but it gets them started with thinking critically about money. And they get used to saying “no” to things in order to meet their financial goals.

Three hikers walk along a sandy trail surrounded by tall pines and striking orange rock formations, discussing teaching kids about money on vacation. Sunlight illuminates the rocky spires ahead under a clear blue sky.

I could go on and on! But the benefits from this simple exercise have taught the boys so many important lessons and will help set them up for financial success well into the future.

Grab the Travel & Vacation Planning Spreadsheet

If you’d like use this strategy with your kids on your next vacation, you can grab the Travel & Vacation Planning Spreadsheet we use right here.

(Or if you want to help them track their own day-to-day spending instead, this simple Monthly Budget Spreadsheet is the perfect place to start.)

Teaching Kids About Money on Vacation: Final Thoughts

It’s funny that even though kids spend thousands of hours in school, they don’t often emerge with a ton of knowledge about successfully managing their finances!

As parents, we wanted to make sure we closed that gap so that our boys can start building a healthy financial future from the beginning. Having them involved with the vacation finances is just one small easy and fun way to do that.

Teaching Kids About Money on Vacation: Frequently Asked Questions

Along with the strategy mentioned in this post, kids can have fun learning about money by playing money-based games like Monopoly and The Game of Life.

For younger kids, playing make believe games like store or restaurant can help them learn some money basics. Older kids can even dabble in setting up their own small businesses to learn about money in a fun way.

The 50/20/30 rule recommends putting 50% of available funds toward needs, 30% toward wants, and 20% toward savings.

This same strategy is applicable for kids and adults. Kids can use the rule as a guideline for allocating allowance or gifts of money from special occasions, while adults can follow the rule for their household income.

If you prefer a digital tracker that kids can access on their preferred device, I recommend the Travel & Vacation Planning Spreadsheet.

If you would like a paper tracker instead, the sheets from our Budget Binder could work for teaching kids about money on vacation.

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