5 Things Teens Should Be Taught About Money

jud!th

here's another tip:

if you're in the black, give away 10% of your income to charities who help people in desperate need.

helps you value what you've got and changes your perspective on what money's for.

judith
x

multimillionaire

Use Caution and Awareness! Otherwise you'll end up :mad:

Look for the true sneaky meaning of all situations; see below...


By reading this advice, you promise to owe this forum user the sum of £5 !


Muhahaha!

MM

Lopo

Was a good thread this !

Shame it died down.....must be more gems of info out there! get posting!

mandarama

Spendless said: Get used to having your own cash and buying your own things with it.I agree, give your kids some monetary responsibility. My son was only 8 when he started moaning about the clothes I was buying him. When he was 10 I handed over the child benefit as an allowance. He saved up for what he wanted, if he wanted designer stuff he had to wait until his funds allowed and he got far fewer things for his money. He is now 29 and much better at money management than me: no credit card or other debts, apart from his mortgage for a large three bedroom semi to house his family. If he can't afford it he doesn't have it - but mostly, it seems he can afford it!

Moonbeam

My son is 4 - every day he starts with 5 stars and these can either be taken away (for bad behaviour) or extra given (for good behaviour). Every night he gets 10p if he hasn't lost any stars & 10p for every extra star he earns. We take 10p away for every star he loses.

On a Friday night if he has 20 x 10p he can go an buy a magazine..... If he has more he can normally get a toy or sweet too....


We were already buying him a weekly magazine, but this helps him to start appreciating money - and gives us a great way to bribe him

completeboxset

As a teenager my mum used to make me do the weekly shop. I always got £25 to buy the shopping (including washing powder, washing up liquid, loo roll - the lot) for the four of us. The supermarket was a fifteen-minute walk from the house (no car family!) and I had to do the shopping and get it home. It was up to me to ensure that I was a savvy enough shopper (loved Tescos even back then!) to save enough money to be able to afford a taxi home. If I didn't then it was a very very long walk home with the shopping!

She also insisted that both myself and my sister gave her a third of our wages from the day we started earning, with the advice that when we thought a third was too much we could move out! This wasn't just from proper 9-5 jobs; it was from the very first day we started working. Handing over a third of my £5 weekly earnings from getting up at 6 in the morning to deliver the papers was a joy!

We had jobs to do around the house, but our pocket money wasn’t dependant on us doing them – mainly because it was non negotiable we did the jobs that were assigned to us! It never occurred to us to not do them!

The up shot of all this (and all the other things like teaching us basic accounting, bank accounts as soon as we were old enough etc etc) meant that by the time I left home at 19 (having decided that a third of my wages was too much!) I was fully capable of looking after myself, and not just in the financial sense! I could cook, clean, iron, and change a plug etc as well!

Teaching children about finance along with the rest of the necessary “life skills” should start from the day they can walk! It’s a life long philosophy which needs to become so much part of their everyday life that by the time they have to stand on their own two feet out in the big wide world it’s already all second nature to them!

Cathy100_2

Thank you to everyone who has written anything Re: 5 Things Teens Should Be Taught About Money.

I have agreed to run a short course next year for Year 11 on 'How to manage your money'. All these ideas are wonderful as I really wasn't sure where I was going to start. All I need to do now is write the course!

Horasio

Five things to teach about money to teens

Don't let them access it!! x 5

LucyToons

do a spreadsheet showing your monthly incomings and outgoings, i have found this to be invaluble especially as I can see what bills are going to go out of my account and what money is going in, i can also see how much I have to spare for things like shopping, petrol etc. you could also do sheets listing all your utility bills, statements etc. when do have a place of your own.

foreign_correspondent

I have worked with teenagers for about 10 years, many living on very low incomes with little financial support from families. For these young people getting into even a small amount of debt / money problems can have devastating consequences.

These are my top 5 basic money survival tips for young people:


- Live within your means - sounds old fashioned, but pay for your rent, bills and food before anything else. If you can find somewhere with cheap rent, keep your bills low and shop/cook economically you will have more money left over for treats, clothes and going out!

- Open your mail and reply to it - especially anything money related - if you are entitled to EMA, housing benefit, help with your council tax etc. make sure you fill the forms in - get help if you need to. (I have known one young person be evicted and left with huge rent arrears, even though she was entitled to Housing benefit, as she didnt know how to do the forms and had put them in a drawer)

- Dont lend or borrow money - Dont lend to friends, if they cannot pay you back, you will be in a pickle and it could be the end of your friendship. 'its better to give than to lend and it costs about the same!'
Credit is a posh word for DEBT - it just makes it sound like a positive!! Dont be fooled, you may want gredit, but do you really want debt? If you must borrow look at how much you will eventually have to pay back. Avoid Provident like the plague!

- Read the small print - never sign anything, be it a mobile phone contract or a mortgage agreement without reading all the small print first. Get help if you arent sure. Never sign anything where the sales person will not leave you the literature to look at it and wants an on the spot signature - eg. most people trying to sell you energy contracts etc on your doorstep!

- Save if you can - its always good to have some emergency / treat money stashed away, and always better to buy things up front that with expensive 'credit' - ever bought a pair of catalogue trainers and found that you are still paying out for them long after they are ditched?? Better to save up and then look for a bargain!

Sorry its a bit long winded!!!:o