“Hey, did your mommy give you that card?”
Ouch. Not what a self conscious teen wants to hear.
OK, so I thought our original card design was clever at the time.
But with a big, blaring “FamZoo” and the quaint “Good Money Habits. Together.” beneath it, the razzing was inevitable.
And that, parents told us, is exactly what happened. Face palm.
So, we just ditched the original design.
“A fool and his money are soon partying.” ~Steven Wright
That always cracks me up.
But, financial literacy is no joke. Even if National Financial Literacy Month does kick off on April Fool’s day every year.
We don’t want our kids to be money dunces. And we probably don’t want them partying with their money either.
To help you steer your kids clear of those money pratfalls, I’ve scanned the analytics over at my family finance tips blog and picked out the top 30 by all-time traffic.
Here they are grouped by 5 categories: earning, spending, saving, giving, and investing.
So your kid wants to buy something special in a moderate price range, but doesn’t have the funds to cover it yet.
The preferred parental response? Wait until you’ve saved enough! You know, delayed gratification and all that.
But occasionally, you’re OK with floating a small short term loan. That is, as long as it’s formally tracked and repaid.
In fact, you’ll even charge a little “Bank of Mom/Dad” loan interest on top. That drives the point home that borrowing money isn’t free. It also discourages a cavalier attitude toward loans in the future.
Good learning opportunity. Good plan.
Maybe.
The envelope system is a tried and true budgeting approach for families who use cash. Here it is in a nutshell:
Nice and simple.
Unfortunately, the cash envelope system is also tedious and impractical in today’s digital world.
Why?
If your prepaid card has account and routing numbers that support ACH transfers (like FamZoo cards do), you can link it to PayPal just like a typical bank checking account.
Why is that useful? You can:
