What do you wish you had been taught?

colinthecockrel

Hi

This is an excellent idea and I hope it goes well for you.

The one thing that leaps out to me is mobile phones. My friend's daughter got into so much financial trouble because she wanted the latest and the best that she was taking out new contracts every couple of months, but not realising she would have to still be paying for the ones she had "dumped". It has taken her a very long time to get straight.

The other thing that occurred to me was about the debit card. I once knew someone, an older gentleman actually, who didn't realise that he could still get cashback on his debit card even when he had no money in his account. He didn't check his accounts and ended up owing 1k+ in a very short space of time.

So, budgeting for sure, but also trying to accept that they don't have to have the very latest phone (etc), at the expense of possibly ending up in debt.

HTH

evie451

Before DS got his job and started earning his own money he had an allowance from me, he complained about the level of it with alarming frequency and stated he hated having to budget.......

I would always counter with everyone has to budget, its not something that is a chore its a way to afford what you really want.....

I feel the age groups (my DS is 20 this year) big downfall is the nights out, my DS has friends who will spend £100 easily on a night out and wonder why they are skint, later in life will they remember how much cash they wasted?

Naf

The difference (or lack thereof) between branded and non-branded products. Also that it is worth testing to find out which does work best to save money long term.

That saving money now doesn't always equal saving money later on. False economies of a cheaper product/service that actually needs more too get a good job done, and so costs more overall.

Working out prices per lb/kg/ml etc to be able to properly compare products - supermarkets often label similar products with different scales (e.g. Price per 100ml on 1l product, then price per l on 2l product etc. and I have seen worse). This is especially bad when seeing an offer, but the 'price per' is only listed for the basic unit cost.

Buying products on offer only if it is a product you use, and is still cheaper than your normal purchase.

Sally_A

I would give each one a "virtual" £1250, a SoA from this site, and make them research rent/mortgages, utilities, food bills etc.

Prize to the one with the most saved at the end.

podperson

I would say budgeting is a major one. Also look at sample costs of regular bills like electric/council tax/phone etc as loads of them at that age seem to have no idea what they should cost. I know it was a huge shock to me when I moved out. The importance of shopping around for those things as well - comparison sites for electric/gas.

Meal planning maybe? How much they could save by home cooking simple meals then on buying constant ready meals/takeaways.

Credit is a good one I think. When I turned 18 I had credit cards literally thrown at me by banks, I didn't even have to ask they just kept offering. Being young and rather naive I took them, spent them to the limits within a few months and then spent the next five years or so stuck in a cycle of only being able to afford the min repayments as they never really reduced - and I think the vast majority of my friends had similar experiences.

Asiacat

Teach them how long it takes to "buy" something you have put on your credit card.

Seventy five pound a month 3% minimum payment sounds a great deal for that 2.5k music surround sound system.

However at an APR of 25% + it will take almost thirty years to pay it off.

Teach them to measure what matters. Many people boast about the amount of salary they get. It's irrelevant what really matters his how much of it you have kept by the time the next paycheck comes. For most people this is close to zero.
teach them how to leverage money.

Teach them the benefits of creative frugality.

Give them a reading list to plough through which includes The Tightwad Gazette, The millionaire next door, Stop acting rich and the cheapskate next door.

Naf

When to buy things; eg coats & hats are cheaper in the summer; Christmas decorations drop after Xmas; gardening stuff is cheaper in Kate summer to autumn etc.

cabriolean

I'm 19, I've almost finished my first year of uni, and while my parents are fairly good at managing money and made a point of mentioning almost everything they could think of, but I didn't do the grocery shopping etc. so there were those little things you do automatically but didn't think to mention it.

The quick things which can be done in one session (most of which I knew, I've bolded the most important because I'm not sure how many you'll have time for)

GENERAL
-A lot of time you are paying for the brand with no change in quality
-Try expressing prices in terms of their prospective average wage after tax and/or in terms of other items(Starbucks doesn't sound so appealing if it's 45 minutes worth of work to get)
-Remember to cancel your subscriptions (Katie-who-no-longer-lives-here was paying at least £6 a week for magazines she wasn't getting, as well as LoveFilm, until I eventually FaceBooked her after a couple of weeks to let her know there were 7 magazines with her name on in the hall, which is when she realised about LF). If no one had told her, that would have been maybe £400 for the year........
-Price is heavily dependent on where you shop

PURE FINANCE
-Payday loans were made by Satan
-How an overdraft actually works, and the different types (one of my flatmates wasn't too thrilled to get a letter asking for a £75 charge for breaching their limit by about a pound.....[Why did you think a bank would give you free money?????])
-Check your balance regularly, you might be lower than you expect (the same flatmate[one of my flatmates has no real money skills] often grabbed a coke and some sweets from the vending machine in our building once or twice a day, these weren't included in his food budget of £6 a day, and were grossly overpriced, he must have been spending an extra £25 a week or so on that alone, then one day a letter from the bank arrives)


FOOD
-The difference between a BEST BEFORE and a USE BEFORE.
-Food past the best before or really short-dated is cheaper AND:
-Freezing items you won't use up in time.
-If it can't be frozen, and you won't use it in time, bulk might not be best.
-Which foods can be eaten long past the use by date (honey, anything tinned, dry rice etc.)
-Just because it's on offer doesn't make it a good deal.

Cooking (I always get exams and coursework simultaneously, this generally leaves me stressed and short on time, also, I didn't cook often before leaving home)
-The microwave is magic, it can do vegetables as well as a bunch of other things really quickly
-A Schwartz shaker or something similar is a really cheap way to make a more economical cut of meat taste a lot better

Naf

Oh, and buying the right size for what you'll actually use within its shelf-life. I.e. just because the bigger pack is cheaper per kilo/litre doesn't mean it'll actually cost you less if half of it goes to waste.

Lindy_-_Loo

I wish we had this 20 years ago when I was 16 and at college before I went to uni.

I would also mention a savings account, even if its only one pound a week. It all adds up