All tagged Money Education
From time to time I take an hour to google personal finance-related media that is close to home here in New Zealand. It’s not exactly plentiful and it all too often revolves around my least favourite topic of housing or the proliferation of easy credit and how as a country we think it’s a good idea to educate our children about money, but then fail to do so. On this last topic, I’m all for educating our kids, but when I read on, we always seem to focus on the “why we should” yet lack the “how we should”. It always leaves me wondering about the financial education of my own child.
Each week I get a lot of emails and it takes up a lot of time, but it’s an honour to answer each of them. People just want someone to ask a money question to but in their day to day lives it’s a complete lottery as to whether they can find the right person in their friend group to talk to, so they write to me instead. So, I just wanted to share with you an edited version of an email exchange I’ve been having with someone over the last few months which will give you an insight into what kind of stuff comes up when I chat to people.
A few weekends ago a young guy was scanning my groceries and he was chatting away about his final exam and his finish date. When I asked him what he had planned for the summer, he said he will be working for about 35 hours a week. Although I was desperate to ask him the finer details of his financial life, I didn’t want to freak this young guy out so I kept my questions to myself. But my absolute main one was “what is a 16-year-old proposing to do with all the money they will make this summer?
It was inevitable that one day I would write a blog post about Dave Ramsey, but it has taken me over three years to get around to it. This month I finally read his book The Total Money Makeover. He created a simple plan which he called The 7 Baby Steps to help others change the behaviours that were keeping them poor and to help them get out of debt and stay out of debt, forever.
I’ve been interviewing people for my podcast and every time I do this I learn something new from each and every person I speak with. But a recent conversation really had me thinking because it presented a completely new and different view on how I could help my daughter (or you could help your child) through her tertiary study once she finishes school.
Those of you who have read my blog for a long time have been on a journey with me as I teach my daughter, now 11 years old, about how money works. Like every parent, I’m just making it up as I go along and I’m slowly working on her education around how money and life interact. So far, I’m pleased with how things are going and the time has come for her very first bank account.
If you have had an ‘ah ha’ moment, or maybe an ‘oh crap’ moment, then this blog post is definitely for you! This is for all of the people who have contacted me over the last month who have just had their own “moment” with money but are struggling with where to go from here. I’m going to help you find YOUR starting point so read on...
Every week I receive one or two emails specifically asking about how to help children invest and there are often comments on various social media about whether you even should help your kids and if you do, whether you should tell them about it. Over the years we’ve evolved an investment methodology for our daughter that appears to be working so I thought I would share with you what we do in our own whare and that might give you some tips for what you can do in your own household.
A while back I asked you to send me in any questions that you are looking for an answer to and I received well over 100 responses. So, I’ve hand-picked just four to answer today and I'll come back to the others in the future. On with the questions!
