How to Count Money (2024)

The quick and easy guide for teaching your kids how to count money

• One dollar is worth 100 cents. Once you have more than 99 cents, money should be written in dollar terms.
• To convert cents to dollars, move the decimal point over to the left by 2 spaces.
• To count money faster, use the “counting on” method. Start with the greatest value and gradually move on to the smaller values as you go.

• Key takeaways
• What Kids Should Know Before Counting Money
• How to Count Money
• Practice problems
• Parent Guide
• FAQs

Have you ever heard the saying “money makes the world go ‘round”?

It’s a fact of life that we all become aware of at a young age. From the first time we beg our parents for a piece of candy or a new toy and hear, “that’s too expensive,” to when we earn our first few dollars of allowance for washing the dishes the importance of money is carved into our minds.

Once you understand that money has value, the next thing you need to know is how to manage it. That’s where knowing how to count money comes in handy!

Skip-counting is the process of counting up by multiples of a number.

Pennies and dollar bills are the only money that can be counted by 1s. Once you have nickels, dimes, quarters, $5 bills, $10 bills, $20 bills, etc. knowing how to skip-count is key.

If you have 5 nickels for example, rather than counting by 1s, you’d want to count by 5s, since a nickel is worth 5 cents, $0.05. To count 5 nickels, you’d skip-count by 5s: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25. In total, you’d have 25 cents, $0.25.

Money is counted in dollars and cents. Start by understanding how to count coins. When counting coins, remember that every 100 cents is equal to one dollar. One hundred cents can be broken down in many ways depending on what coins you have in front of you. One hundred cents can be made up of:

• 4 quarters
• 10 dimes
• 20 nickels
• 100 pennies

To break things down even further, more valuable coins can be broken up into coins of smaller value:

• A quarter can be broken up into 2 dimes and 1 nickel, 5 nickels, or 25 pennies
• A dime can be broken up into 2 nickels or 10 pennies
• A nickel can be broken up into 5 pennies

Once you understand how change can be broken down, practice adding different coins together.

2 quarters = 25 cents + 25 cents = 50 cents
1 dime = 10 cents
3 nickels = 5 cents + 5 cents + 5 cents = 15 cents
5 pennies = 1 cent + 1 cent + 1 cent + 1 cent + 1 cent = 5 cents

50+10+15+5 = 80

You’d have 80 cents!

Finally, work on converting cents to dollars. When coin counting, converting cents to dollars is easy — just move the decimal point over to the left by two space:

• 1034 cents becomes $10.34
• 506 cents becomes $5.06

Money counting with bills is very similar to counting with coins. However, this time you’re only working with dollars — no cents.

The smallest bill, the $1 bill, is the only bill that cannot be broken down into smaller bills.

• The $5 bill can be broken up into five $1 bills.
• The $10 bill can be broken up into two $5 bills, or ten $1 bills.
• The $20 bill can be broken up into two $10 bills, four $5 bills, or twenty $1 bills.
• The $50 bill can be broken up into two $20 bills and one $10 bill, five $10 bills, ten $5 bills, or fifty $1 bills.
• The $100 bill can be broken up into two $50 bills, five $20 bills, ten $10 bills, twenty $5 bills, one-hundred $1 bills, or a number of other bill combinations!

Knowing how money can be broken up comes in handy when making purchases and counting change. But you aren’t always going to be counting coins and bills separately. Sometimes, you’ll have to count them at the same time!

Let’s take a look at how that works.

To add both coins and bill, follow these steps:

1. 1. Count coins first
   2. Convert the coin total into dollars
   3. Add up the bills
   4. Add the two values together

Want to learn more about counting money? DoodleMath is an award-winning math app that’s proven to double a child’s rate of progression with just 10 minutes of use a day!

Filled with fun, interactive questions aligned to state standards, Doodle creates a unique work program tailored to each child’s needs, boosting their confidence and skills in math. Try it freetoday!

The “grouping” technique is best for larger amounts of money.

With the “grouping” technique, you group like coins and bills together. Do your best to group the coins together in groups of 100 cents. Add up the coins and the bills separately, then add the two values together to get your total value.

Subscribe to DoodleMath