When Christy Warner was growing up, her grandfather gave her a $25 savings bond every birthday and Christmas. Warner, now a communications professional in Minneapolis with two young children of her own, says that tradition, along with her grandfather’s personal example of thrift, is what set her on the path to savings in her own life. Those savings bonds, which added up to several thousand dollars over time, are also what helped her make her first home purchase.

As Warner’s experience shows, grandparents can play a big role in teaching their grandchildren about money. A study released last month from the financial services company TIAA-CREF found that while the majority of the 1,003 young adults surveyed (85 percent) say they are open to discussing finances with their grandparents, only 8 percent of the 1,000 grandparents surveyed say they talk with their grandchildren about money and the importance of saving for college. Only 30 percent say they think they can influence their grandchildren’s money habits. But the findings also suggest that grandparents are more influential than they think. In fact, 73 percent of grandchildren surveyed say their grandparents have an impact on their saving and spending habits.

[Read: How to Teach Teens More About Money .]

“There is a certain perspective that individuals gain as they age, and being able to interact and engage with grandparents, to understand their attitudes and how their spending habits have changed over their lives, it’s a great lesson [for grandchildren] to think about their future and what kind of future they want,” says Joe Stabnick, head of AARP College Saving Solutions for TIAA-CREF.

“One of the things we were happy to see is that grandchildren did want to hear from their grandparents,” says Joe Coughlin, director of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AgeLab and collaborator on the study. “Part of that is about grandparents’ experiences. Grandparents can tell stories and explain how they were able to muddle through or succeed; it inspires and informs.” And unlike parents dispensing advice, he adds, a conversation with grandparents can feel less threatening to teens.

Catherine Collinson, president of the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, says she vividly remembers learning about the importance of saving and frugality from spending time with her grandparents when she was growing up. “A day didn’t go by when there wasn’t some form of financial lesson. It started with needing to live within or beneath your means and never spending more than you have, or better yet, finding a way to save, because you never know when a rainy day is going to come,” she says.

She says she would visit fancy department stories with her grandmother, who loved beautiful clothes, and they would take note of the dresses they liked, and then recreate them with a sketch pad and sewing machine at home. Her grandmother also taught her how to bargain hunt. “Why pay $100 for an item if you can pay $20 for it?” Collinson says of one of the lessons stuck with her into adulthood.

[Read: How to Talk Honestly About Money With Your Family .]

Here are five tips for grandparents who want to pass on financial lessons to their grandchildren:

1. You don’t have to write a check.

Gifting savings bonds or a deposit into a college savings account can be beneficial, but it’s not necessary if times are tight, and in fact, simply talking about money can be even more important. “It’s really just engaging them and having that conversation [about money] and helping to show how they got where they are today. If they have the resources to help out, that’s just a bonus,” Stabnick says. Grandparents can also “hire” their grandchildren to do chores around the house and pay them an hourly wage, TIAA-CREF suggests.

2. Talking goes a long way.

TIAA-CREF recommends that grandparents share how they earned spending money as a teenager, how they paid for their education and how they afforded things they really wanted. If grandchildren seem interested, then those conversations can transition into a discussion of setting goals and saving for college. Grandchildren often indicate when they’re ready to have these kinds of talks about money. For example, if they ​want to buy toys at the store, they're ready to talk about the difference between needs and wants.

3. Take a trip to the grocery store.

Stabnick recommends visiting the grocery store with grandchildren to spark a discussion about how prices as well as items have changed. Grandparents can explain types of things they bought at the store when they were growing up and what they cost. “It’s an interesting way for [grandchildren] to understand how the value of money has changed over time and how the choices we have ​have changed,” Stabnick says.

4. Use technology.

Coughlin says that while grandparents who live far from their grandchildren might have a tougher time talking frequently about money, they can take advantage of tools like Skype, video chatting and other tech tools to keep the conversation going. “[Technology] is allowing for more intimate discussions that you might not have had before, using these platforms,” Coughlin says.

[See: 10 Money Questions to Ask Your Parents .]

5. Be an example.

Some lessons are imparted even without the exchange of words. Simply by learning their grandparents’ life stories and how they saved over their lifetimes, grandchildren can pick up lessons. “Grandparents have the opportunity to teach us that life is about a marathon, not sprinting, so you have to plan for endurance and resilience,” Coughlin says. Grandparents can also take a trip down memory lane and share how much their first job paid and what their first car or house cost.

Today, Warner is repeating the family tradition started by her grandfather, and often makes a small investment in a stock, like Disney, for her daughters to get them interested in saving and investing. “From that experience, I learned what I want to do,” ​she says, referring to making deposits during holidays and birthdays. And she hopes that as her daughters get older, they will internalize that same financial​ lesson.

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