Your credit card, miss

At the age of 6, I made myself a credit card (It’s a shame that I no longer have it). I used it to pay for a family dinner when my family was out with another family we were close with. Two fathers had gotten the waiter to play along. I knew nothing about credit cards, except that adults paid for stuff with one. I learned years later that my father and the other father had secretly given the waiter credit cards to split paying for the meal. At the time, no one explained how a credit card worked and this would have been a perfect opportunity to do so.

So where do kids learn about money and finance? Home Ec. is long gone, so not is school. On their own? Most kids would much rather spend money than learn about it. It falls to parents and parental figures to educate the next generation on money and finance. Easier said than done.

When I started high school I had to submit a budget to go back-to-school clothes shopping. Then i was to fill in the actual prices and see if my budget was right on, too much or too little. This meant that I had to know what I needed and/or wanted and the relative cost of clothing. When my daughter started high school, I did the same with her. I want her like I did to learn the art of budgeting and why it is important. To this day I budget. Every year I do a household budget.

Learning to budget isn’t just about knowing market prices and figuring out what you need/want. It is also about future planning. A line item of my yearly household budget is home repairs and maintenance. This way I ensure that I have money should a faucet leak or I hang some hooks in my front hall. This is where kids can get bogged down. They don’t understand the future planning aspect of budgeting. If my daughter’s clothing budget included a line for future purchases, then she might not be left with less than 10% a month before school starts. Mind you her next clothing budget is not until next year for spring/summer.

So I have read books, spoken to financial advisors and others in the finance field, and I have yet to find a comprehensive program/class teaching teens about money and how to value it. If you have any suggestions please send them my way.

In the meantime, I recommend these books…

For elementary school students… Peter Saves for a Rainy Day

For middle school students…Finance 101 for Kids

For high school students… How Money Works