Summertime and the spending is easy: Lessons in money, life and laundry

It's easy to burn your way through a pile of cash when you're on vacation--and with gas prices shooting ever higher by the day, it can be difficult to budget for that family vacation in advance. So what's a cash-strapped but vacation-craving family to do?

Think about what kind of spending example you want to set for your kids. Do you want to teach them to spend now, pay later, or to spend within their means (even if that means going with a more modest vacation or playing tourist in your hometown)? Kids don't listen to what you say. They watch what you do. So be prepared to walk the talk when it comes to money.

Focus on what you can do this year rather than what you can't. Rather than being apologetic about what you're not able to afford this year ("It's too bad we can't afford a big trip to somewhere really exciting"), focus on all the cool and creative mini-trips you can plan in lieu of one big trip ("We'll visit country fairs and exhibitions, we'll visit a children's festival and stay at a motel with a waterslide, and we'll house-sit Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Brian's condo one weekend while they go to a wedding--which means we get to use their hot tub and stay downtown for free.")

Finally, give your kids a heads' up about the vacation spending money game plan. Will they have to rely on their own funds (e.g., money they've squirreled away from their allowance, paper routes, and/or part-time jobs?) or will they have a small amount of fun money to spend during your family's various getaways? Financial gurus stress it's important to give kids experience in managing (and, yes, mismanaging) their own money, so don't be afraid to let them make their own spending decisions. They'll quickly learn that the $40 souvenir t-shirt they had to have wasn't such a bargain--particularly if the print starts to fade the first time it goes through the wash. And that lesson learned in impulse buying is much better learned on a $40 item at the tender age of ten than on a $2,000 used-and-abused car at the age of 17. So think of that $40 that your child throws away today as an investment in his financial education. After all, some of the best lessons we learn in life are the ones acquired through the School of Hard Knocks--to say nothing of The Incredibly Cruel Laundry Machine of Life.

Now, over to you: What were some of the best lessons you learned from your parents about money? How are you trying to teach some of those same types of lessons to your kids?

Related: Have Belly, Will Travel