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Money—we use it everyday and are constantly forced to make decisions about it. What should we buy? Should we save it or spend it? How much should we spend? Do we really need new shoes or just want them? Whether we are young or old our everyday spending decisions can have a much greater negative impact on our financial futures than any other investments we might make. Knowledge and experience (learning from our past mistakes) can help us make good financial decisions. When it comes to money, what we don’t know can really hurt us! Bad money habits learned as a tween can lead to even bigger problems later. Help your child learn these money lessons for a secure financial future: |
TWEENS REALLY NEED:
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Money doesn’t equal self-worth. Teach your tween that it’s not how much money we have that’s important. It’s what we do with our money that’s the important thing. |
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All money decisions have consequences. Everybody makes money mistakes—the smart people learn from them. Share some of your money mistakes and the consequences. When your child makes a mistake help the child see what other choices could have been made. |
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Planning makes money go further. Encourage your tween to set a financial goal, i.e., saving for a stereo and make a chart showing how saving some money each week or every month can make owning a stereo a reality. Compare how much more the stereo would cost if you had to make payments. |
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Rainy days happen—plan for them. Encourage your child to plan for the unexpected. Share your personal experiences with unexpected car repairs or a broken refrigerator. Each of these can be a crisis for a family with no emergency fund or merely an inconvenience for a family with savings. |
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You’ll never be rich if you spend more than you make. Practice “pay yourself first.” Encourage your child to save some money form each allowance or paycheck before spending any money. Putting money aside regularly is the key to building a “nest egg” and reaching your financial goals. |
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Smart people put their money to work making more money. Teach your tween about interest and the power of compounding. |
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Credit is not free money and credit cards send a message: SPEND. Teach your tween that credit is really “renting someone else’s money” and it is very expensive. Give them a concrete example of how much more something costs when you buy it on credit. For example, that stereo they have their eye on costs $499. If they buy it on credit –paying $31.85 a month for 18 months with 18.8% interest, that same stereo will cost $575. They could buy a few CD’s with the difference. |
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Return to the Table of Contents or continue to the Introduction, Consistent Discipline, Structure, Role Models, Values, Good Nutrition, Survival Skills, or Resistance Skills.
This page last updated Tuesday, November 18, 2003
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