I help prepare kids for their eventual financial futures. Which means, I get them when they’re young and teach them how to stay out of debt and build wealth. So being confronted with young adults who are already thousands of dollars in debt is a bit sobering for me. I was asked to work with a group of foster kids (they’re actually 16-23 year olds) and teach them stuff about money. So on my first visit, I played a little…
I had the pleasure of a phone conversation with my 5-year old niece, Olivia, the other night. We were chatting about her first weeks in Kindergarten. Apparently, Ian had brought in a pretty nifty coin collection because she talked about it for about a minute, which, if you know anything about five-year-olds, is a pretty long time for any one topic! So that led to a discussion (albeit, short) on money. I asked her what she knew about money. “You buy stuff…
I’d heard about stuff like this before but this was my first real exposure to it. $300 in overdraft fees. In response to my question, “What are some of your experiences with money?” Josh, a 19-year old in my young adult money class answered, “I cut up my debit card.” That’s when he told us of his overdraft experience. He didn’t realize that the bank would continue to pay for his debit card purchases even though there was no money in his…
One of the hardest things for me to do as a parent is to deliberately allow my kids to fail. It’s so hard that sometimes I need to walk out of the room so I don’t end up intervening and bailing them out. Of course, I would never, ever allow my kids to fail if it puts them in any sort of danger. That’s just a no-brainer. But making mistakes is a part of life and, if viewed from the perspective…
I use my husband and kids as guinea pigs. That’s what I was doing one evening during dinner when I handed everyone a post-it note. I was practicing a lesson I was planning on teaching the next day to a group of fifth graders. “Write down five numbers from 1 to 47 on your post-it. You can use your favorite numbers or simply choose random ones. It doesn’t matter. If you match any of the five I write down, I’ll…