If your child is going to be living on their own, they will need to learn how to shop for themself. Frequently, their experiences with shopping as a child is watching mom put the groceries into a cart, scanning items, and putting them away at home. And more and more, I see children focused on a phone or tablet while a parent shops.
This leads to many of them not even watching, or only watching passively. So when they are away from home for the first time, they tend to have problems with shopping.
To make sure that my sons are prepared for shopping on their own, I frequently take my teens shopping with me. This way, they learn the routine before dealing with it on their own with their own money.
Make a Shopping List
When first starting out, it is hard to remember everything you need to pick up at the store. You can help make this easier by putting a notepad in the kitchen so they can write things down when they are running low. Things frequently get moved in our house so we transitioned to a small white board attached to the refrigerator with a dry erase marker. This way it doesn’t get moved and it’s in the kitchen, which is when you notice that you need something. This is something you can start while they are in middle or high school to start getting them prepared. If your teenager needs a little more help you can create a spreadsheet listing their frequently purchased items by location in the store and have them check them off or circle them if they need the item. Then they can take this list with them to the store.
Purchasing Necessities First
When starting out, your teenager will most likely not have a lot of money to work with, so it is important to remind them to purchase necessities first. Teenagers like their snacks. My eldest would spend all of his money on that if he could. However, this will not sustain him.
Therefore, it is our job to help them understand wants vs. needs, and how to prioritize spending. They need to purchase food to make meals with first and then their snacks. They also need to remember to purchase household items like toilet paper, trash bags, soap, etc. These are things they haven’t had to purchase before. They’ve always just been there because their parents have always purchased them.
Learning the Checkout Process
Start teaching your teenagers the entire shopping process.
- Have them pick out their own food and put it into the shopping cart.
- Have them load the conveyor belt in the regular shopping lines and show them how to pay the cashier with a credit card.
- Have them scan and bag their items and how to pay using the self checkout machine.
We had our kids work with a cashier first, so it gives them extra experience interacting with other people, and they can help with loading things into the shopping bags, etc. Once they became proficient with that, we showed them how to use the self checkout line. It is important to know how to use these lines as well, since sometimes no regular lines are open. More and more places are getting rid of most, or all, of their regular check out lines, so this is really important to learn. I’ve seen adults struggle with the self checkout and wanted to spare our kids the frustration.
Have them scan and bag the groceries. Since they’ve seen the checkout process already, they should be familiar with it. However, don’t be surprised if they try to put too much stuff into a bag and risk breaking it. If they are prone to over filling, you can teach them to double bag the plastic bags, especially with heavy items.
Be sure to show them how to pay for the groceries. You wouldn’t believe how many people (including neurotypical adults) I’ve seen go to the self checkout lines and have no clue how to pay for their groceries.
Finally, they also need to learn how to make purchases on websites and how to pay for their purchases. We kept this for last with our boys since it is easy to go wild with credit cards and spend all of their money. We want them to understand that when you spend money; it leaves your account, even if you still have the debit/credit card in your wallet.
Shopping Sales
My mom was an excellent role model when teaching me how to shop sales. I’ve passed the same things down to my middle son to help him stretch his money. I’ve shown my son how to check the store sales flyers to see what is on sale.
Using the sales ads, I’ve been able to show him how to price compare and shop for the best prices. I’ve also taught him that when an item goes on sale that you frequently purchase to buy a bunch and then you don’t have to purchase it as often at full price, which saves a lot of money.
Certain times of the year are better to purchase some items. For instance, clothes go on sale at the end of summer right before the schools start back and that lots of online retailers start putting items on sale just before, during and shortly after Black Friday. So if a movie/game he wants to purchase is coming out in July, it will probably be on sale in November for a lot less.
Try Not To Make Impulsive Purchases
My middle son has a job and is starting to make some of his own purchases. I’ve encouraged him to not to make impulsive buys and to wait for a better price. Sometimes he does and other times he doesn’t, but hey I’m occasionally guilty of that myself.
Sometimes when we are out shopping, he finds something that he likes and wants to purchase it. I pull out my phone and search other big name stores that sell that type of item and see what their prices are and then show him. This way, he sees that prices aren’t always the same at every store and he knows he can check for a better price. My husband and I typically wait a few days before making a large purchase or research it in advance. This allows us time to decide how much this would actually benefit our family. It also gives us time to price compare and make sure we are getting a good price. We have shown our son this process so that hopefully when he gets out on his own, he will do the same.
Money is one of the biggest problems that people face in their lives. Anything we can do to try to help our children reduce potential financial issues could help them live a happier, more successful life.
