No More Hand
Outs.
Start the year
off right by deciding that you are not going to just shell out money to your
kids anymore. When they come to looking
for money, let them know that they will have to work for it. The bank is now closed unless they start
pulling their weight a little more around the house. Tying work and reward
together in some meaningful ways will help them understand responsibility and
accountability. It will also help them understand that in real life, no one
ever gets money for doing nothing.
Smash The
Piggy Bank.
Piggy Banks are
a bad way to teach kids about money.
That’s right, take that piggy bank and smash it or throw it away. Long gone are the days when we should be
teaching our kids about money by dropping coins into a bank that looks like a
pig, jar or favorite sport team mascot. Using
banks like these only teach children about money in a manner that isn’t as
relevant anymore. Get them a real bank
account and teach them how to manage their money though online services. It is far more useful to learn to manage
money in a bank rather than a pig.
Make Kids Pay…
For The Cell Phone, That Is.
According
to Consumer Reports the average mobile phone user spends about $600 a
year. If you do the math, you're going
to be shocked at how much you are going to be shelling out over the years so
that your kids can send hundreds of meaningless texts each month to their
friends! Kids should pay some, or all of
their phone bill each month. This is a perfect opportunity for you to sit down
and teach your children about how much things cost, especially things that they
seem to think they are entitled to for some reason. This is also a great time to discuss the things
that they can do around the house to earn the money to help pay that bill.
Play The
Match Game.
Set up a matching
program for your kids. They save a
dollar and you match that dollar. Yes,
100% return. Sit down and determine what
they would like to save for and then set out to accomplish it together. This is a great opportunity to talk about
short term, mid-term and long term goals. When a child learns the power of savings
like this at an early age, what do you think will happen when they get their
first job and they learn about the 401(k) program that is available?
Comic Books
To Teach Kids About Money? Now That’s
Just Dumb.
Last year Visa
teamed up with Marvel to put a comic book together to teach kids about personal
banking practices. Talk about a square
peg in a round hole. They supposedly
were going to distribute 150,000 of these square pegs in eight different
languages. Why does something as
important as personal finance have to be jammed into little white blurbs above
super heroes heads in a comic book? Parents should be fighting to get personal
finance taught in our schools, this way, comic books can remain fun.
Make Them Better Givers.
No matter how
your children earn their money, make sure they plan to donate a portion of it to
a charity of their choice. The average American gives away about 4% of their
annual income to charity and perhaps that percentage would increase if the next
generation made giving a common practice as soon as they learned how to throw
coins into a bucket.
Set Goals
That Are Meaningful.
A start of a new
year is a great time to sit down with children and talk goals. Meaningful goals. Help your children put
together a plan on working toward and saving for something significant. It
could be a bike, musical instrument, laptop computer or go-kart. The more
meaningful the item, the harder our kids will work to earn it and they will
take care of it.
About MyJobChart.com
MyJobChart.com, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, is a free,
easy to use, online and mobile job chart and reward system designed to teach,
organize and motivate kids to earn, save, share and spend responsibly. Bringing
together the latest technology and basic personal finance principles to help
parents teach their children responsibility, accountability and how to manage
money wisely. Over the past two years, MJC kids have completed over 19.5
million jobs and earned nearly $3 million. MyJobChart.com can also be used
through its Apple and Android mobile apps, allowing parents and kids the
opportunity to save, share and spend from anywhere. For more information, visit
www.myjobchart.com.
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