How to Help Your Kids Understand the Family Financial Budget

Between You, Me and the Lamp Post

How to Help Your Kids Understand the Family Financial Budget

Very few children know the value of money.  They see that their friends have the latest electronic gadgets, designer clothing or fashionable jewelry and they want it too.  They have no idea how much those items cost or whether or not Mom and Dad can afford them.  If you’ve ever wondered how to help your kids understand the family financial budget, the following tips might help.

As soon as children are old enough, tell them how much you earn and show them what kind of bills have to be paid on a monthly basis.  Talk to them about the mortgage/rent, the hydro bill, phone bill, credit card and anything else that needs paying.  Write all payments down, add them up and deduct them off your income.  Seeing how much is left will make them understand what a family budget is.

Let children accompany you on grocery shopping trips and let them see the bill.  While shopping, individually priced items may not make much of an impression on them, but seeing it added up might open their eyes just how expensive groceries are.  If you are paying with a credit card, show them the statement at the end of the month.  For a lot of children a credit card is a magical card that pays bills, but they don’t take into account that that card has to be paid too.

Teach your children about shopping around and practice what you preach.  The next time you need shoes, a sweater or washing liquid, take the kids along and show them that shopping around might help them save a significant amount of dollars. When they see how much you save by visiting more than one store, chances are they will do the same.

Introduce your children to earning their own money.  Don’t just give them an allowance, but give them tasks to do and pay them accordingly.  They will soon find out that it takes time and effort to get a particular sum together.  If you want them to learn the value of money, let them get a part-time job when they are old enough.  Nothing teaches kids more effectively about money than having to work for it.

It might also be a good idea to let them have their own savings account.  Not just a piggy bank in which they save a few coins, but a proper bank account that pays them interest and with which they can see their savings grow.  With a growing savings account they might prefer to put money aside instead of spending it.

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If the rich were forced to share, how many would benefit?

As a rule, I avoid social media like Facebook, Twitter, and others for the simple reason that some of those posts annoy me. But every now and then I still get confronted with articles or news headlines and they do more than annoy me, they make me bloody angry.

First, there was the news that America’s First Lady bought a $51,000 jacket. In my opinion, it’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen and they Dolce & Gabbana would have to pay me $51,000 to wear it, but that’s beside the point. The point it, how can anyone spend that kind of money on a jacket they will wear only once?

If it was up to me, I would enforce a rule that if people spent that kind of money on frivolities, they should be forced to donate an equal amount of money to a worthy cause. For a lot of people, $51,000 is equal to five years or more of rent. So why not give five hard-working families $10,000 each? Or ten families $5,000. Not folks who receive welfare, but people with jobs who genuinely do their best but still find it hard to make ends meet.

A few days later another outrages purchase caused me more aggravation. This time it was David Beckham who bought his wife a $379,261 purse.

Now wouldn’t it have been nice if Beckham would have been forced to donate an equal amount of money to the victims and families of the recent London terror attacks? That would have been money well spent.

Another worthy cause would have been to donate $379,261 to various animal shelters to supply food and medical services (such as spaying and neutering) to cats, dogs, etc.?

Or his money could have helped quite a few people who needed help with their mortgage. Or a particular city could have used the funds to subsidize public transportation.

And this is just the beginning. Middle Eastern sheiks buy diamond encrusted cars and paintings for hundreds of millions of dollars. They should be forced to help others with an equal amount. Not only would this help out deserving families, but they might think twice before flaunting their wealth.

If the rich were forced to share, just how many would benefit?

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When did we become a bunch of penny pinchers?

Are you too getting just a little sick and tired of all the advice about how to save money?  “How to save money when grocery shopping” ... “How so save money on clothes” … “How to save money on electricity” … When did we all become such a bunch of penny pinchers?

Thank goodness for Christmas.  Apparently Americans responded to all those articles about how to spend less with a big fat “Stick it where the sun don’t shine” and let their dollars roll.  ComScore, a leader in measuring the spending habits of Americans, reported that a whopping $35.3 billion was spend online, marking a 15% increase to last year.

The writers of the “How to save on …” will probably tut tut about this figure.  I applaud it.  This kind of spending will generate a need for more merchandise, resulting in more jobs.  It’s a shame Christmas comes around only once a year.  With that kind of spending, our economy would be back on its feet in no time.

Unfortunately that is not the case and more and more jobs are lost on a daily basis.  Statistics tells us that the unemployment rate is down by 8,5%.  Baloney, the unemployment rate may be down, but it’s not because all those people found jobs. 

Undoubtedly some will have found employment, but I dare say that the rest of those 8,5% simply lost their unemployment benefits.  I should know, I’m one of them.

I received no warning that my allocated weeks were nearly up, I received no notice that I had nearly reached the end of the line.  My benefits were canceled from one day to another.

I suspect that a mistake was made, so I went to the unemployment offices, but was politely sent packing.  I tried contacting them by phone by got the message “Our call volume is high.  Please try again later.  Have a nice day.”

(To be continued)