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Kids allowance – to give or not to give?

July 22nd, 2010 Posted in Uncategorized
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Kids Allowances

People seem to ask the same questions about kids allowances again and again.

“Should I give my child an allowance?”

“How much should I give my child as an allowance?”

“When should I start giving my child an allowance?”

“Will an allowance ruin my child’s entrepreneurial spirit?”

Allowances are a very touchy subject and it really comes down to each individual’s personal strategies for financial education for their child.
Teaching children about money can be very difficult and confusing for the parent as well.

Most of us were raised with the value that “money is evil”, or “you don’t need to have money to be happy.”

But have you had a good look around you lately? Can you find me a family who are in a lot of bad debt that are not stressing about their finances? Maybe money doesn’t make you happy but not having money will make you a lot more unhappy, I can tell you that for sure.

Just imagine, you have a recurring income of more than $10,000/month.
How would that feel? Would you feel stressfree because you are now able to pay off all of
your expenses and thereby not create any bad debt?
How will you feel when you have money left over at the end of every month instead of living paycheck to paycheck?

What if you were financially able to give away 10% of your income, every month, without even noticing the fiancial impact?
What would you give it to? Who would you like to help? How would it feel to be able to help others in need with the extra money that you are earning without even feeling the financial impact?
It would be a pretty awesome feeling right?

So how does this tie into the topic of allowances?

Some people suggest that Allowances are a way to teach their children about money.
Others suggest that allowances gives their kids the chance to learn to handle money without losing their shirt.

Here are some of my own suggestions on the topic to get your financial juices flowing.

Maybe when we give our child an allowance it might start to create the feeling of entitlement in our child?

What if by giving our child an allowance we were actually hindering their financially creative minds?

Would they be so used to just getting money that they wouldn’t even bother to come up with creative new ways to earn their own money?

And what about pride of ownership that comes when we are finally able to acquire our dreams by our own means instead of just as a gift from someone else?

These are just a few of the topics discussed in Allowance Secrets and for a limited time you can get it for free.

Allowance Secrets is the ultimate Guide to allowances. Over 20 experts have
contributed to this project.

Like to learn more about the subject? Click here

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Celebrities, kids and money

July 22nd, 2010 Posted in Uncategorized
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Tori Spelling Will Teach Her Kids About Money
By Mia Saini – Anchor/Reporter for Forbes Video Network in New York City. 

 

Tori Spelling is synonymous with many things: 90210, Aaron Spelling’s daughter, and being super skinny. But few would categorize her as a businesswoman. But, over the past few years Tori Spelling has done a great job at excelling in the world of business and making a name for herself as an entrepreneur. She came into the Forbes studio do an interview with me about the business ventures she’s involved with. Check out my video interview with her to see how she balances business and motherhood.

Video: Tori Spelling Means Business

As the mom of two young children, Tori Spelling has her hands full constantly. She always wants to make sure that her children learn life’s lessons every day. On the topic of money, Tori was very candid. She told me she will make sure she teaches her children how to handle money, how to make great investments, and how to handle a checkbook.

“I had a very luxurious life, a life of wealth. Unfortunately, my parents really didn’t discuss money with us. We weren’t taught how to handle money. So when I started to make my own money on 90210, I didn’t know about savings, I didn’t know about investments. I had to learn the hard way. I had to go from having everything, to making it on my own, to losing everything, and then having to rebuild again the right way, but the smart way.”

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What Celebrities Teach Their Kids About Money

July 9th, 2010 Posted in Uncategorized
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The July issue of Money Smart Magazine contains an elightening interview with Terry Starr and Bradi Nathan founders of www.myworkbutterfly.com – a global social network providing a safe haven and resources for mothers contemplating a return to work while guiding working mums trying to manage it all.

Among their well known members are actors, designers, TV hosts and models.

Read the following extract from the interview.

Talk show host, Kathie Lee Gifford said  she’d be happy to do an interview with us and our site wasn’t even built yet, she really, truly believed in the mission and understood that this was something that women needed. We  have Emme who was the first plus sized super model, Gloria Allred, well known lawyer here in the States, she was actually recently on the Tiger Woods case. We also have designers, Liz Lange and Dana Buckman, Jill Zarin from Real Housewives of New York City and Dina Manzo from Real Housewives of New Jersey among many others.

Money Smart – In your view is being a celebrity parent a help or a hindrance to the children?

T & B – What we learned at the end of the day interviewing so many mums is that they are truly no different to Terry and me. They struggle with the same things that we do. Malaak Compton-Rock, for example, her husband is famous actor and comedian Chris Rock.

She constantly wrestles with guilt, she is a huge advocate for children’s rights and travels extensively to South Africa and at the same time as she is holding these orphans she thinks to herself I feel horrible that I am not home driving my children to their gymnastics class.

 So even though she is a celebrity in a sense, she still wrestles with the guilt that we do, so I don’t think she is any different. Just she has money or because her husband is more well known than ours. She has the same obstacles that we do.

Money Smart- So how much of an issue is it teaching their children about money?

T & B In an interview we did with Malaak she talks about rent is the service we give for living –  her children know that when they get a toy, they give a toy and they actually have a separate room in their house for those times when Malaak is going to go to South Africa. She brings those toys to the South African children and on the occasions when her kids come, they get great satisfaction  to see that child holding their toy. Great lessons. 

When she was sharing the story I thought wow, I sure wish I’d thought of that when my children were young because I think it’s a wonderful lesson that she’s teaching her children.

And then we have the celebrities that we’ve interviewed talk about the fact that it’s important for them to know that, and these are their words, they are blessed and they want their children to know that it’s important that they make a difference in the world and to give back.

It’s very inspiring.

Read the rest of the interview in Money Smart Magazine and listen to the full audio

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Money management – attitudes start at home

June 29th, 2010 Posted in Uncategorized
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In the wake of the economic situation, Credit agency Equifax believes that it is more important than ever that future generations are taught financial skills. This belief is reinforced by the findings of recent research* conducted by Equifax amongst parents, where 35% said they don’t think their children have a good understanding of the value of money and 94% believe financial education should be part of the national curriculum.

“Young people now live in a world where debt is a fact of life and research has found that student debt has topped £5,000 for each year of study” says Neil Munroe, External Affairs Director for Equifax. “This makes it absolutely imperative that, as early as possible, young people understand how best to manage their finances. It is therefore very encouraging to see the work of My Money Week, which aims to help schools teach children more about managing money in a way that is practical and relevant to them.”

More than a third of parents who responded to the recent Equifax research on finances amongst young people, believe that their children have a good understanding of the value of money. But almost the same number think this is not the case. When it comes to children’s understanding of money management, 73% of parents said they felt their own parents’ attitude to money and finances had influenced how they now manage their finances.

“Clearly the right attitude about money management starts at home” continued Neil Munroe. “But we believe the school curriculum can play a very important role in preparing young people for the challenges of the 21st century. And that includes being in control of their finances and managing debts more effectively than the generation before them.”

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World Cup Money Lessons

June 6th, 2010 Posted in Uncategorized
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Cashing in on World Cup Fever

Love it or loathe it—The World Cup is going to be hard to avoid over the next couple of months. So if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em and use it as an opportunity to get your kids interested in learning about money.

Financial Soccer is a free financial literacy resource supported by Visa.Financial Soccer Logo

It build upon the success of Financial Football, which apparently is a different game in the US, Australia and a few other places. 🙂
 

 

The essence of the game is to answer questions which give you an opportunity to move down the pitch and hopefully score a goal. What makes it fun are the great graphics and animation plus the opportunity to decide whether to go for a short pass (easy) or a more complex move (harder).

The game has several playing levels based upon age and ability ranging from 11 to 18+. You can decide your country or region which gives some more rele-vant questions.

Strangely there is not any coverage for European countries. The game is however very popular in North and South America plus the far East and Australia.

There is enough going on to keep your kids amused for hours, plus the opportunity to use the game as a starting point for discussions about for example savings or interest rates.

If you can drag yourself away from the game there are also downloadable work-sheets and information guides.

Unquestionably credit card companies have to shoulder some of the responsibility for the current economic turmoil. Whether this can be viewed as positive PR or a genuine attempt at financial literacy is a matter of choice. As an educational game however, it gets my recommendation.

 

 

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