All Posts
Teaching kids about money management
By Bob Masterson
When, where and how is the best way to teach kids about money management? They know how to spend it. That’s not the problem. In fact from the earliest years, through internet and television advertising, kids are taught how to spend. We are now living through the effects of immediate gratification brought on over the past 20 years. Remember your father saying “money doesn’t grow on trees”. Well, for the longest time it did. Credit was plentiful and cheap.
We teach our children at an early age how to read and write. Isn’t it just as logical we teach them how to manage money? This by no means is instinctual.
“We need to figure out how to do this the right way,” says Lewis Mandell, a professor at the University of Washington who after 15 years of studying financial-literacy programs has come to the conclusion that current methods don’t work. A growing number of researchers and educators agree that a more radical approach is needed. They advocate starting financial education a lot earlier than high school, putting real money and spending decisions into kids’ hands and talking openly about the emotions and social influences tied to how we spend.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1953695,00.html#ixzz0eh8yBvV9
What are your thoughts?
“Practically everything we do as parents is motivated by a desire to see our children be happy. The good news is that there is much you can do to encourage them to discover true happiness for themselves. Every day, in each moment, you can offer essential encouragement through your loving presence, your own example and your steadfast support. As you encourage your children to be happy, you may notice that something else happens, which is that you become happier too.” — Dr. Robert Holden
Copyright Teaching kids about money management © 2011. All rights reserved
How to Start a Nest Egg
By Annette Kingsbury
My dad has a cute little saying he uses to explain his philosophy of saving money: Pay yourself first.
It’s his simple explanation of how he and my mom, despite raising six kids, managed to save enough money to see themselves comfortably through 20 years of retirement (and counting). “Pay yourself first,” means that money goes into savings for the future first, before it goes into Mom’s or Dad’s (or the kids’) pockets.
Like many of his generation, my dad entered World War II as soon as he was old enough, then returned home after the war to get a job, start a family, and go to college on the GI bill. As soon he was eligible to get into his employer’s investment plan via payroll deduction, he did so.
“Mother and I talked about it once, and we never talked about it again,” he said. “I considered it an emergency fund.”
The fund was occasionally dipped into for major emergencies. But by and large it sat there and grew. Over the years Dad diversified his investments, but rarely took risks.
This philosophy has served him exceedingly well. Though he never could have imagined his employer, General Motors, going bankrupt, he saved enough in other solid investments to stay on an even financial keel.
As the oldest of those six children, I can tell you that it wasn’t always easy. We didn’t take vacations, but there was always food on the table. Though I didn’t know about Dad’s plan as a child, I grew up with an abiding sense of the value of hard work.
Today’s parents can set the same example for their kids, who are bombarded with all sorts of expensive, “must have” electronic gadgets du jour. No matter how your child earns money, teach her how to save it, if only as a stepping-stone to bigger and better down the road.
How to start a nest egg? Simply start.
Copyright How to Start a Nest Egg © 2011. All rights reserved
The FamilyMint Minute – May, 2010
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
This month, as we honor the memory of those that died in the service of the military, FamilyMint is honored to receive an award from This Old Schoolhouse (TOS). The TOS crew voted for the vendors that they thought were special and had a product they considered to be outstanding. We are pleased to inform you that FamilyMint won for the category of ”Most Family-Oriented Product”!
wo toys, will he hold onto both instead of giving one of the toys to his brother? If she has two cookies, would she rather eat both or share one with her sister? Charity is something that needs to be taught and nurtured early in life. It starts out by repeatedly saying “share that toy with your brother” or “give your sister the other cookie.” We explain why we share and how it makes the other person feel. Although the child may give begrudgingly at first, it is a foundation from which untold future benefits will flow.