DHP Financial topic of the week: Teaching kids about money?

[imported_Gman]

What are we doing to teach the children in our families about good money habits ?

This is borrowed from an earlier topic that I thought would make a good topic all by itself. Just to get things started heres some comments from that other post.

"Kids need to see and feel the struggle.. They have everything handed to them nowadays... No matter what the home income.. Parents cant barely pay rent but their kids are rocking $150 sneakers... They get all the new video games... They don't even question HOW their parents are doing it.. And take all for granted...

I know I would go to school and do my best so that I didn't have to struggle as much as my mom has.. I also knew the last thing my mom needed was not to be able to go to work because I was cutting class and she need to go to school. She was just getting by as it was.

I honestly think most of these kids don't know what is the reality of thier situation.... "

-Myor

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"I do see your point...however what are they actually having handed to them? A. disposable consumer products....getting things handed to you means businesses, stocks, bonds, real estate, education etc....what we think we are "handing" to our kids is just monopoly money while other ethnic groups are talking real assets"

-Magus
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"Preach....at Christmas, birthdays, we give our children, niece, nephews, games, shoes and other crap that is outdated in 6months, meanwhile I have friends on the "other side" who give there kids stocks, bonds, gold, etc. at these events.

...when will we change?"

-Lil Ray

[imported_Gman]

Linda set up a program at her school called "Legitimate Money". She would recruit black, hispanic and asian kids to set up a little business inside the school (with the principles permission of course ;) ). Some company donated a popcorn machine so the kids sold bags of popcorn during the lunch periods. They got instuctions on ordering supplies, making the popcorn and keeping the books. They then took the profits and invested in a mutual fund during the year. This turned out to be great learning experience for the kids. They even got into trouble when the cafeteria workers union complained to the principle that this kids business was violating the contract they had with the school concerning exclusing rights to sell inside the lunchroom. So they had to move the business just outside the lunchroom doors which was even better because you got your customers before they went in. They sold a lot of popcorn as you can imagine.