Christmas morning is here and as good as everyone feels today, the pain of paying for all of the gifts will hit in a couple weeks......unless you had a budget and stuck to it. Tough to do when the kids all want a Wii, or whatever it is they lust this year.
One of the gifts my kids received is a new version of the game "Life" that includes visa cards for tracking all of the money electronically instead of paper currency. Aside from being a headache waiting to happen learning how to play, I believe this is an indicator of things to come for our kids. They will handle the green stuff less and less and the plastic more and more. I think we can all agree that the skills needed to manage finances change when we are dealing with plastic, and although it is simpler in some ways, it is also way more complex. Without a solid foundation in the fundamentals of financial mangement, these kids will get in trouble. It is not if, it is when.
Obviously I have a bit of an axe to grind on this topic! The good news is that we get to do somethng about it this year. Now that Catherine has agreed to jump in as the Program Director, its time to put together the Advisory Board and get down to the real work - turning the rough draft in to a book, developing the web site, and establishing relationships with the partner charities we decide to support as an organization.
I am very excited about all that I will learn as I continue down this path, and wish all of you as much success and happiness as possible in 2010!
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I agree that plastic has taken over. I rarely use cash anymore, especially in front of my children (aged 6 and 4). So it got me wondering if they realize that using a credit card is just a deferred way of making a payment. I gave them a "credit card" with up to $20 to show them how using a credit card still means they have to pay for it (with cash) in the end. Unfortunately, I hadn't really established the foundations with them so while the older child understood the concept, we hadn't set up to practical side of handling money, which it sounds like your ideas of allowance, giving raises and banking day are looking to do.
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