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Where did all that hair go?

The Daily Princetonian just published a nice piece on FamZoo today. You can check it out online here.

Chris, Henry, and I were all classmates and I roomed with each of them (until they couldn't stand it anymore).

For a little chuckle, here's our "Then" and "Now" pictures. (Yeah, that's right, back then, the Facebook was actually a book...)

The FamZoo Crew Then & Now
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5 Golden Rules for Teaching Your Kids Financial Responsibility (2min video)

Are you committed to instilling a solid sense of financial responsibility in your kids this year? If your answer is "yes", then you're in good company. A recent Amex survey found that a whopping 91% of parents plan to do just that in 2010.

What's an easy way to get started when you only have a couple of minutes to spare? How about some very brief video clips to help you get the ball rolling quickly?

Janet Bodnar, a nationally recognized expert in the field of children's finances, appears in a series of 9 short-and-sweet videos that offer excellent tips for parents teaching their kids the ins-and-outs of personal finance. A little more about Janet's credentials: she's Kiplinger's Personal Finance editor, writes a monthy column called Money Smart Kids, and is the author of the book Raising Money Smart Kids (affiliate link).

This first clip presents 5 golden rules to keep in mind when teaching kids about money. It's a mere 2 minutes and 15 seconds long (after a very brief commercial intro), so give it a quick look.

To recap, Janet Bodnar's 5 golden rules for parents when teaching kids about money are:

  1. Use day-to-day situations: skip the abstract lectures and let your kids learn by doing.
  2. Keep things simple: make sure whatever system you use is manageable for you and age appropriate for them.
  3. You have power: they'll listen to you despite what seem to be overwhelming media and peer influences. Don't back down!
  4. Don't buy them everything they ask for: your kids need to hear "no" when appropriate - just be sure to couple your response with a sensible reason.
  5. Be consistent: make sure you follow through on your agreements with your kids around money. Not doing so would model the wrong behavior.

If you're ready to take the next step and start implementing a simple, consistent, learn-by-doing financial education system with your kids, please consider FamZoo. We've done our best to build a service that is flexible enough to fit with your family's financial values and your child's age from youngster to teen. You can pick and choose the approaches that work best with your family. If you think we've missed something or just want to share your thoughts on the topic, please leave a comment below (or on Twitter or Facebook) or contact us on the FamZoo web site.

If you'd like to gather some more tips, here's a list of additional quick videos from Janet that will help you get started:

Good luck on your 2010 commitment to your child's financial education. They'll thank you for it - um, well at least someday they will...

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Don't Let Your Child Be That Little Pig!

A fun little FamZoo cartoon from Henry. Enjoy!

Avoid the Crash, Be Prepared!
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Do You Work For Free?

Do You Work For Free?

Didn't think so. Neither do we! (Well, not intentionally...)

So, we put our Pricing FAQ page up on the site tonight.

Sorry, FamZoo isn't free, but taking us for a very thorough test drive is. We give you ample opportunity to make sure we're right for your family before asking you to commit to a subscription. We offer a 2 month free trial period and, if you search around on Twitter a bit, you can often locate a coupon good for even more free months. Also, we don't ask for credit card or payment info up front.

Give us a whirl!

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What's Hoops Got To Do With Managing Your Finances? Our First Print Ad

We had some fun putting together our first print ad this morning. It's for a local publication for the Corona Del Mar High School basketball team that Chris' son plays on. Here's the half page placement:

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Whaddya think?

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FamZoo Grand (and we mean GRAND!) Tour Now Available

We've just created a comprehensive annotated screenshot tour of FamZoo. We think the tour will be helpful to existing members as well as new ones. There's a lot in FamZoo and a number of different ways to configure it for your family. We hope this detailed tour will help everyone get the most out of FamZoo.

Just below we've embedded the tour as a Google Docs presentation. (Note: You'll probably want to hit the Open-in-New-Window control just to the right of the Slide-N-of-M indicator along the bottom of the embedded player to launch the presentation in a new window. That way, you can make it nice & large and clearly see all the detail on the screens. The embedded player has a maximum size of 700x559 and the original screenshots are a bit larger than that.)

Yes, this tour is indeed pretty epic! But, we wanted to get all of the detailed info out there in more of a tutorial form first before picking and choosing content for the (inherently shallow) Quick Tour teaser (which we'll be putting together soon).

Please share your thoughts:

And, please share it with anyone who might be interested. Here's a convenient shortened link to the Google Docs presentation: http://bit.ly/aijBY7

Thanks for spreading the word!