MSE News: Saving money can be child's play

snugglepet20

I am pleased that financial education will be taught in schools and I hope it will be taught well (although PHSE was basically an hours doss and extra gossip time on a Tuesday morning when I was at school!). Any financial education is better than nothing which is what I got. My parents never discussed any type of finance or budgeting at all with me, to this day they will not disclose how much they earn (but I have a good idea ). Therefore I was released into the world of easy to get student debt completely unprepared with disastrous consequences!

My parents are highly educated professionals and high income earners but they spend money like water, I don't think I would take their advice even if it was offered! So please teach kids something about money because you cannot rely on the parents no matter what background they are from!

stacy26

Saving money is no doubt a child's play but only when it is taught at the right age. Kids should be taught by their parents how they can save their pocket money and its benefits. Teenagers/college going students/adults all need to learn about saving money for their better future. More money saving tips can be read at manageme7 blog which can be accessed at manageme7.com/blog .

QueenDebbie

I'm a Financial Capability Worker for a CAB, and spend most of the week working with a local college. I've developed sessions for the students that I thought they'd find interesting and useful, such as comparing mobile phone costs, buying a car (how you'll pay for the car initially and then budgeting for running costs, comparing insurance, etc) and moving out of home. The principles from these sessions can then be applied to other areas.

It's shocking how little some students know, and I don't think we can rely on parents to teach their children. When I was running a stall at the college's money day, a student misheard me explaining APR and wrote down in a quiz that it stood for 'animal percentage rate' (he wasn't joking, he didn't think to question what it might have to do with animals). Business studies students struggle to write a cheque or read a bank statement.

I believe it's really important for children to be taught about money, I just hope that the lessons are taught well (as when I did PSHE at school the teacher saw it as a waste of time and made us sort his old store cupboard out nearly every lesson).

LydiaJ

I'm a science teacher. I don't teach any PSHCE and won't be involved in the delivery of the new financial education thing. However, this debate did inspire me to do a physics lesson differently the other day. We have to do "paying for electricity" as part of GCSE. Usually, it just means teaching them what a kWh is, and getting them to calculate how many "units" they will need to pay for if they have the 2kW heater on for two hours and 6 lightbulbs (100W each) on for 4 hours etc. However, this time, I did it as a computer lesson, and extended the topic, getting them to research which suppliers would be cheapest for several hypothetical households. I worked in some information about how long it takes to switch, and what tricks the companies will play to make the most money out of the consumers. It's not much, but I hope some of them will remember it when they're old enough to have to pay their own utility bills (they're 16 now).

MSE_Martin

LydiaJ wrote: »

I'm a science teacher. I don't teach any PSHCE and won't be involved in the delivery of the new financial education thing. However, this debate did inspire me to do a physics lesson differently the other day. We have to do "paying for electricity" as part of GCSE. Usually, it just means teaching them what a kWh is, and getting them to calculate how many "units" they will need to pay for if they have the 2kW heater on for two hours and 6 lightbulbs (100W each) on for 4 hours etc. However, this time, I did it as a computer lesson, and extended the topic, getting them to research which suppliers would be cheapest for several hypothetical households. I worked in some information about how long it takes to switch, and what tricks the companies will play to make the most money out of the consumers. It's not much, but I hope some of them will remember it when they're old enough to have to pay their own utility bills (they're 16 now).

If you forgive the analogy but for that here's a huge

MONEYSAVING GOLD STAR

It gave me a huge lift to know that writing this comment had already had an impact

someone

LydiaJ - Well done, money is part of every day life, so its lessons should be woven into day to day classes like this.

SteveP29

PlasticMan wrote: »

I left Uni with a huge overdraft, and Lloyds told me to pay it off with a loan - at 14%. They're a mainstream bank and I had always banked with them, so I trusted them.

I left college 18 years ago with an overdraft of £400 (yes, I was lucky) ands also banked with Lloyds (my parents did, so at the time, it seemed a natural progression).
Whilst looking for a job they demanded £5 a week be paid off the overdraft (I was on income support at the time, as I didn't qualify for unemployment benefit as it was then) from the £35 a week I was receiving.
Upon paying off the debt, I was sent a letter saying quite matter of factly 'thank you for paying off your overdraft, your account has now been closed'

That's no way to encourage our youth to pick a bank and invest and save with them.

GaftheHorse_2

Your instructions work fine, unless you have an MP like mine, Dr. Julian Lewis MP for New Forest East, who has decided to roll back time to pre 1980 by removing his email address. If you want to contact him about this excellent idea then you need to write him a letter, phone him up, and I guess he'll probably accept communication by pigeon post as well

skraps6

I have just emailed my MP and got the following message from his out of office:

If you are a constituent living in Milton Keynes South, please ensure that you supply your full name and address and, if possible, a contact telephone number. There is a strict Parliamentary rule that MPs can only deal with matters raised by people living in their own constituency.

So this is all in vain unless you add your address details.

Cheers Kev

Hermia

BonandDom wrote: »

She came home on friday "depressed because with my chosen career path I cannot afford to live".

.....................

Instead, we had a family chat on saturday as she now wants to change her further education path so she can get a job that pays more, but not one that she particularly wants to do, afford to pay her rent and other bills. We spent sunday surfing the net looking at house prices and we even did a SOA from here for her.

Whilst this school seems to have been a bit dramatic, I don't think this is a bad thing to teach kids. I think when you are young you are very idealistic and don't think money matters, but of course it does. I wish I thought more about this. I have several friends who went into poorly-paid 'dream' careers and are now constantly worried about money or are changing career. A friend did animal care at college as he has always wanted to work with rescued animals. It was fine when he was in his 20s & living at home, but he now wants to get married, get a house and have kids. But, the salaries for animal care jobs in his area are so low that he can't even afford to rent a flat on his own, let alone support a family. He really wishes he had thought about this when he was younger and maybe trained for a higher-paid animal job or just kept it as a hobby. I definitely think we should have had better careers advice at school.

I wish finance had been included in maths lessons a bit more. We did loads of abstract stuff that was really useless unless you were planning to going on to do a maths A-level. I wish we had learnt about interest rates and loans. Even a little information about how the economy works would have been useful.

Even if schools did all this, I still think parents are going to have more influence. Teaching children how to budget and being a good role-model is always going to be the best thing. I remember if I spent all my pocket money in one day on rubbish they would not give me more money or buy me anything. I soon learnt how to budget! Some of my friends tell their kids to save some of their money, but when the kid spends it all at once they give in and give them more or buy them stuff. It's not really giving them a taste of the real world!