Young people better prepared for the future

IT_nerd

At school I had my own business.
I would spend all my dinner money on sweets from my local shop and get the buy one get one free offers.
Then when I got to school I would flog off most of it. I could almost double my dinner money this way. Probably made £10 a week from that.
That kept me going through year 7, 8, and some of 9.

Conrad

To be effective the starting point has to be to teach young people they dont have to buy thier way to respect. Teach them its uncool to line up like a sheep and buy a product of the Gucci family, as all it does is make Mr Gucci's kids richer and you poorer and a mug.

lynzpower

Speaking ahead of the launch of My Money, Mr Balls said: "Financial capability education has always been high on the government's agenda.
"This research demonstrates that it is more crucial than ever that young people are fully equipped with the confidence, skills and knowledge to manage their money effectively both now and when they become adults."

Really Mr Balls? ALWAYS been the top of the agenda has it? If so, why oh why has it taken over 10 years to get it in, cant be a funding issue if as my learned freinds suggests its less than 1k per school. Id imagine more has been spent on new style hand dryers than this so called priority.

I have often felt that LAbour are quite happy to allow the youth of this country to sink into indebtedness, and certainly dont want to stop young people thinking about going to universty in case they get somewhat scared by the fact they could have somewhere IRO 30k debt on graduation.

lostinrates

I wish we had had lessons on personal finance at school, we did not. I'd go to them now if adult ed ran courses!

treliac

lostinrates wrote: »

I wish we had had lessons on personal finance at school, we did not. I'd go to them now if adult ed ran courses!

That's an excellent suggestion - wonder if it's been considered within the realms of adult education.

treliac

Conrad wrote: »

To be effective the starting point has to be to teach young people they dont have to buy thier way to respect. Teach them its uncool to line up like a sheep and buy a product of the Gucci family, as all it does is make Mr Gucci's kids richer and you poorer and a mug.

Mmm, Absolutely and without doubt. But how do you start to make a break from this celebrity, designer label, brand name, etc. etc. culture we've developed? Nearly every boy and every girl thinks the only way to success in life is to look like their idol.

neverdespairgirl

baileysbattlebus wrote: »

Our 3 are what are called "generation y" (age 13 to 28), 1979, 1980 and 1982, all learnt a bit at school, we didn't try and make them do anything with their money they didn't want to do - we advised them to save, but they didn't.
By the time they were in their late teens they all had overdrafts, storecard debt and credit card debt, one also had a loan.

Pretty similar in age to me and my siblings - we were born in 1977, 1979, 1983, and 1985. None of us have ever had storecard or credit card debts (other than monthly, paid off in full) nor loans (other than student / graduate loans) or out of control overdrafts.

baby_boomer

treliac wrote: »

how do you start to make a break from this celebrity, designer label, brand name, etc. etc. culture we've developed?

Have a serious recession ?

treliac wrote: »

wonder if [financial education has] considered within the realms of adult education.

PFEG's stated role is to concentrate on schools

This independent charity gets government funding, as well as help from others. There is no inherent reason for them not to widen their mandate - except that undertaking to promote financial education in schools is such a mammoth task on its own and they will be aware of government priorities because of the funding.

lostinrates wrote: »

I wish we had had lessons on personal finance at school, we did not. I'd go to them now if adult ed ran courses!

As a "serious money saving fan" I notice that you have already started your course, here on MSE !

Paul_M_5

IT_nerd wrote: »

At school I had my own business.
I would spend all my dinner money on sweets from my local shop and get the buy one get one free offers.
Then when I got to school I would flog off most of it. I could almost double my dinner money this way. Probably made £10 a week from that.
That kept me going through year 7, 8, and some of 9.

Sounds familiar, except the guys who had a similar idea in my school did it instead with smokes. They would buy a box of 20, which was around £3 back then, and sell them as singles for 20p or 25p each -- profit of between £1 and £2 per pack.

And of course plenty of the wannabe rebels bought them, being that they wanted to smoke (cos it's cool :cool:) but didn't have the £3 required to buy a box.

Interestingly enough, at least one of the guys pulling off this little business was a non-smoker. He did it purely for profit, rather than to fund his own smoking habit. And no, it wasn't me (although maybe I wish I had thought of it first!)

GracieP

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Pretty similar in age to me and my siblings - we were born in 1977, 1979, 1983, and 1985. None of us have ever had storecard or credit card debts (other than monthly, paid off in full) nor loans (other than student / graduate loans) or out of control overdrafts.

Like myself and my brothers, 1978, 1982 and 1986. None of us ever had debts, store/credit cards and we always save for things we want instead of taking loans out. When my youngest brother was made redundant in August he left work with over €15k in savings and as he had bought his car in cash he didn't have payments to keep up like many of his co-workers did.

I'm better off than my parent's ever were, but no matter how well-off I am as my children are growing up I won't be giving them whatever they want. They'll have pocket money and budgets and if they don't save for the things they want they won't get them. And they will know all about what everything from holidays to clothing to water costs.